Musée Marmottan Monet

A Claude Monet museum in Paris

Located in a fancy neighborhood near Bois de Boulogne, the Musée Marmottan Monet is housed in a large mansion built in the Empire style. The house was purchased in 1882 by Jules Marmottan for his art collection centered on Napoléon. Paul Marmottan (1856-1932),his son, set up an office-library in the house. In 1932, he donated his mansion to the Académie des Beaux-Arts and in 1934 the Marmottan museum opened its doors. Subsequently, as a result of many donations, the Napoléonic collection became a museum of Impressionist painting and today it holds the largest collection of paintings by Claude Monet in the world.

Marmottan Museum's fame is the result of the exceptional donation in 1966 by Michel Monet, the second son of Claude Monet and his only heir who had no children. You like Claude Monet and impressionist painters. Visit Musée Marmottan, the extraordinary Musée d'Orsay, the Musée de l'Orangerie and its waterlilies in Tuileries Gardens. Go to Giverny Gardens, the house of Claude Monet in a lovely village near Paris. The City of Lights is the place where impressionism was born and thrived. Hence the richness of her museums.

Visit Musée Marmottan Monet

The Marmottan Monet Museum is housed in a beautiful private house of the fashionable Auteuil district in Paris.

The collections are impressive in a relatively small museum. There are far less visitors than in Musée d'Orsay.

Locate Musée Marmottan on Paris map
tel: 33 (0)1 44 96 50 33.

Paris metro: La Muette station on line 9
Closed Mondays, 1/01,1/05,25/12
Open 10 am to 6 pm. Thursdays until 9 pm.

Marmottan Museum ticket price: 14 euros.

Musée Marmottan Monet collections

Marmottan Monet Museum has 65 Monet paintings, including Nympheas and Impression soleil levant. This 1872 painting gave its name to the impressionist movement of the late 19th century. The Nympheas are waterlilies. Claude Monet painted them in the famous garden of his house in Giverny. Giverny is a lovely village in Normandy, west of Paris. As the best impressionist landscape painter, Claude Monet brought color and light, expressed happiness and life emotions in his paintings. Everybody likes his friendly style. His paintings are sold a fortune. Claude Monet and Giverny.

Impression soleil Levant

On April 15, 1874, the first Impressionist exhibition opened in Paris. "Impression, sunrise" by Claude Monet was exhibited. The painting caused outrage. Its most vociferous critic, Louis Leroy, mocked this seascape with its sketch-like style. “An impression, I’m sure. I thought to myself, this has made an impression on me so there must be impressions somewhere in there.” Louis Leroy lambasted what he ironically christened “the exhibition of impressionists”, little imagining that the movement would later generate such international enthusiasm.

"Impression, sunrise" was purchased in 1974 for 800 francs by collector Ernest Hoschedé and ended up in Musée Marmottan in 1940. It was not until the 1950s that art historians pointed out the artwork’s founding role. When loaned, the artwork was insured for 50 million francs.