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| Established | 1934; 91 years ago (1934) |
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| Location | 2, RueLouis-Boilly,16th arrondissement of Paris |
| Coordinates | 48°51′33″N2°16′02″E / 48.8593°N 2.2673°E /48.8593; 2.2673 |
| Website | www |
TheMusée Marmottan Monet (French pronunciation:[myzemaʁmɔtɑ̃mɔnɛ]; English:Marmottan Monet Museum) is an art museum inParis, France, dedicated to artistClaude Monet. The collection features over three hundredImpressionist andpost-Impressionist paintings by Monet, including his 1872Impression, Sunrise. A number of Impressionist works by other painters are also displayed; the museum hosts the largestBerthe Morisot public collection in the world.[1]
The museum finds its origin in the 1932 donation by art historianPaul Marmottan of his father'spavillon de chasse, that he transformed into anhôtel particulier and which now houses the museum, to theAcadémie des Beaux-Arts, along with a sizeable family collection from the Renaissance and the Napoleonic era. The museum opened in 1934; its fame is the result of a donation in 1966 byMichel Monet, Claude's second son and only heir.[2]
Originally a hunting lodge for the Duke of Valmy, the building at the edge of theBois de Boulogne was purchased in 1882 by Jules Marmottan, who later left it to his son, Paul Marmottan. The latter moved into the lodge and, with an interest in the Napoleonic era, he expanded his father's collection of paintings, furniture and bronzes. Marmottan bequeathed his home and collection, as well as his library (theBibliothèque Marmottan in Boulogne), to theAcadémie des Beaux-Arts. The Académie opened up the house and collection as the Musée Marmottan in 1934.
On October 27, 1985, during daylight hours, five masked gunmen withpistols threatening security and visitors entered the museum and stole nine paintings from the collection. Among them wereImpression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant) byClaude Monet, the painting from which theImpressionism movement took its name. Aside from that also stolen wereCamille Monet and Cousin on the Beach at Trouville,Portrait of Jean Monet,Portrait of Poly, Fisherman of Belle-Isle andField of Tulips in Holland also by Monet,Bather Sitting on a Rock andPortrait of Monet byPierre-Auguste Renoir,Young Woman at the Ball byBerthe Morisot, andPortrait of Monet bySeiichi Naruse. The stolen paintings were valued at $12 million.[3][4]
A tip-off led to the arrest in Japan of ayakuza gangster named Shuinichi Fujikuma who had spent time in French prison for traffickingheroin and was sentenced for five years. There he met Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun who were part of an art syndicate. Fujikuma, Jamin and Khimoun planned the Marmottan theft.[5] In Fujikuma's house, police found a catalog with all the stolen paintings from the museum circled. Also found were two paintings byJean-Baptiste-Camille Corot stolen in 1984 from a museum in France. This led to the recovery of the stolen paintings in a small villa inCorsica in December 1990.[6]
Though originally a showcase for pieces from theFirst Empire, the nature of the museum's collection began to change with two major donations. In 1957, Victorine Donop de Monchy gave the museum an important collection ofImpressionist works that had belonged to her father, Doctor Georges de Bellio, physician to Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley and Renoir, and an early supporter of the Impressionist movement. In 1966, Claude Monet's second son,Michel Monet, left the museum his own collection of his father's work, thus creating the world's largest collection of Monet paintings.[7] In 1985, Nelly Duhem, adopted daughter of the painterHenri Duhem, donated his large collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works (which included several Monets) to the museum.
Since 1975 the museum has organized two exhibitions annually dedicated to an individual or collections, including Toulouse-Lautrec in 1976, Boilly in 1984, Daumier in 1989, Goya in 1990, Boldini in 1991 and Pissarro in 2017. The museum's paintings from late in the career ofClaude Monet were exhibited at theNew Orleans Museum of Art andFine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 1995. The works later traveled to theWalters Art Museum,San Diego Museum of Art andPortland Museum of Art in 1998–1999.[8]
The museum also contains works byBerthe Morisot,Edgar Degas,Édouard Manet,Alfred Sisley,Camille Pissarro,Paul Gauguin,Paul Signac,Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others. It also houses theWildenstein Collection ofilluminated manuscripts and the Jules and Paul Marmottan collection of Napoleonic era art and furniture.
Jacque Carlu, then curator of the museum, built a special exhibition space for the Monet collection in a lower level of the museum. Inspired by the hall designed for Monet'sWater Lilies murals in theMusée de l'Orangerie, the large, open room allows visitors to see a progression of Monet's work, as well as to view his canvases both up close and from afar. One of the most notable pieces in the museum is Monet'sImpression, Sunrise(Impression, Soleil Levant), the painting from which the Impressionist movement took its name. The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan in 1985 but was recovered five years later, and it was returned to the permanent exhibition in 1991.
The museum is located at 2, RueLouis-Boilly in the16th arrondissement of Paris. The nearestMétro station isLa Muette, on Line 9.
Scènes bucoliques, paysages champêtres, portraits de jeunes filles en fleur aux tons pastel et à la facture enlevée illustrent le talent de Berthe Morisot, la première femme impressionniste. Sans équivalent au monde, cet ensemble légué par ses descendants constitue la plus vaste collection publique de l'artiste. Elle regroupe plus de vingt-cinq peintures et de rares aquarelles et pastels.
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