Musée Marmottan Monet

Purchased in 1882 by Jules Marmottan from the Duke de Valmy, this hunting lodge situated near the Bois de Boulogne was transformed into a private residence by his son Paul Marmottan. On his death in 1932, Paul Marmottan bequeathed his entire collection, his villa and his library, now the Bibliothèque Marmottan, to the Académie des Beaux-arts.

Although Jules Marmottan's artistic tastes tended towards the German, Flemish and Italian Primitives, his son Paul's passion for the Napoleonic period led him to collect paintings, sculptures and furniture in the Empire style. His collection included bronzes sculpted by Thomire, chairs by George Jacob and paintings by Carle Vernet, Louis Boilly and François-Xavier Fabre.

In 1957, Victorine Donop de Monchy donated part of the collection inherited from her father, Georges de Bellio, to the Musée Marmottan. A doctor and friend of the Impressionists, he had acquired several works by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley, notably Monet's Impression soleil levant, which gave its name to the movement.

This exceptional donation probably prompted Michel Monet, the painter's youngest son, to bequeath his father's property in Giverny and his works to the Académie: 80 oil paintings, 4 pastels and 3 drawings, as well as caricatures and sketchbooks. As a result, the Musée Marmottan now owns the world's largest collection of works by Claude Monet, in addition to the painter's personal collection, which includes works by his friends Boudin, Caillebotte, Guillaumin, Jongkind, Manet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir and Rodin.

In 1980, Daniel Wildenstein decided to bequeath to the Musée his father’s extraordinary collection of illuminated manuscripts, comprising 228 medieval miniatures from antiphonaries, missals and books of hours.

The works collected by Henri Duhem and his wife Mary Sergeant in 1987, thanks to the generosity of their daughter Nelly Duhem, are an admirable addition to this collection. A painter close to the Post-Impressionists, Henri Duhem was also a passionate collector of contemporary art.

In 1996, the Denis and Annie Rouart Foundation was created within the Musée Marmottan Monet. The Musée then enriched its collections with works by Berthe Morisot, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir and Henri Rouart.

Since then, many other important bequests have enriched the museum's collections, including those of Emile Bastien Lepage, Vincens Bouguereau, Henri Le Riche, Jean Paul Léon, André Billecocq, Gaston Schulmann, the Florence Gould Foundation, Roger Hauser, Cila Dreyfus and Thérèse Rouart.