MUSÉE MARMOTTAN MONET

The Musée Marmottan Monet houses one of the most important Impressionist collections in Paris, with some one hundred masterpieces by Claude Monet and paintings that once belonged to the artist (Degas, Gauguin, Renoir, Sisley...). It also exhibits oils, pastels and watercolors by Berthe Morisot, as well as a whole range of objets d'art and paintings from the First Empire.

Nestled in the ^16th arrondissement, the museum is housed in the former mansion of Paul Marmottan, an art historian, collector and patron of the arts (1856-1932), who specialized in the Consulate and the Empire. He bequeathed it to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, along with his own collection. The mansion, which became a museum in 1934, was once a hunting lodge belonging to the Duc de Valmy. As soon as it was acquired by Jules Marmottan (1829-1883), director of several French energy and transport companies, and father of Paul Marmottan, it housed his first collections, notably of medieval and Renaissance art. Later, Paul Marmottan gradually added early ^19th-century paintings and marble effigies of members of the Napoleonic family from the Tuileries Palace and the Château de Portici in Naples.

From 1938 onwards, more recent works entered the museum thanks to various donations, not the least of which were drawings by Bouguereau, canvases by Baburen and, above all, paintings by major artists (Berthe Morisot, of course, but also Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Monet), including the famous "Impression, soleil levant" (1873-74) bequeathed in 1957. In 1966, the museum also received the collection of Michel Monet, the painter's son, while in 1993, the descendants of Berthe Morisot bequeathed their family collection to the museum, making the Musée Marmottan the world's leading repository of works by Monet and Morisot.

Today, the museum organizes regular temporary exhibitions, but its permanent collections can be visited all year round, and include a wealth of objects from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, some of them signed by masters such as Jean Perréal's fabulous "alchemist" (1516). ^{Nineteenth-century} art is naturally well represented, with works by Morisot, Eugène Grandin and Gustave Caillebotte to name but a few. Among the must-sees is "La fillette au jersey bleu", a superb pastel by Berthe Morisot (1886). You're sure to fall in love with the work during your visit.