Visit to the Marmottan Monet Museum

Every time I come on vacation to Paris, where I lived for over 10 years, I dedicate about half a day to visiting the Marmottan Monet Museum, and sometimes add a trip to the In the green spaces around it Or, alternatively, stroll through the streets of Auteuil-Passy, ​​which are packed with chic shops and malls. And if not to buy, to enjoy.

The Marmottan Monet Museum displays the world's largest collection of Monet's works. Claude Monet...and more. All the famous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists are displayed, around Monet, in the museum's halls, and even those whose work has not reached the general public.

The mind-expanding museum is located in the elegant and calm 16th arrondissement, in a magnificent urban mansion, and features a permanent collection that is always fascinating and changing exhibitions that are always interesting. To get to the Marmottan Monet Museum, you can take metro line number 9 and get off at the station called La Motte.

Metro La Motte
La Muette Metro Station

If you have time, I highly recommend taking a bus that crosses the ParisThe amazing view of the city will unfold before your eyes as if you were on a tourist bus, for the price of a regular ticket. On the museum website, which also allows reading in English, lists all the bus lines and the name of the stop where you should get off at each one.

The station is named after Le Château de la Muette, the Muette Castle, located on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. The castle was built, in the 18th century style, by Henri de Rothschild, a multi-faceted connoisseur, in the early 20s, next to the original castle that was demolished. Here, in short, is the history of the castle, located not far from the Marmottan Monet Museum, and connected to it, and we will learn about the nature of the connection later.

Chateau de la Muette

Since the Middle Ages, the place has served as a hunting lodge for kings. FranceAt the end of the 16th century, Charles IX expanded the château to give it to Queen Margaux on the occasion of her marriage to Henry IV. In 1606, she, in turn, gave it to Louis XIII.

The castle went through many changes. In 1717, it was purchased by the Regent Philippe d'Orléans, who, after enlarging and renovating it, gave it to his eldest daughter, Marie-Louise-Élisabeth, who would become the Duchesse de Berry after her marriage at the age of 15. When Marie-Louise-Élisabeth was 7 years old, she fell ill and her life was in danger.

The Duchess de Berry indulged in gluttony, debauchery, and debauchery. Her body grew fatter, both from excessive eating and drinking and from successive pregnancies. The Château de Moët, which she had received as a gift from her father, served as a refuge and hiding place where she gave birth to her stillborn children, the sons of her many lovers, until in 1719, during one of the unfortunate births, she breathed her last, at the age of 23. Shortly before that, she had managed to marry, to her father's displeasure, one of her lovers, a count.

Another aristocrat whose fate was not so fortunate is associated with the Château de Moët: Marie-Antoinette. Upon her arrival in France, she awaited her wedding ceremony at the château and stayed there several times afterwards. In 1764, the château, which had been the property of Louis XV, passed into the possession of Marie-Antoinette's husband, who would become Louis XVI. This explains her connection to the place.

Louis XVI and his young wife strolled in the park of the château and spent happy days in the shade of its canopy. It was a honeymoon not only for him with his wife but also with his people. At the château he received Emperor Joseph II, Marie-Antoinette's brother, for dinner. Another interesting detail is that on a sandy plot, northeast of the royal park, he gave a license to the pharmacist and agronomist Antoine Parmentier to plant potatoes, although they were not yet known in France.

It would be too short to recount the events of the Château de la Motte throughout history and its many and varied uses. A huge telescope was moved to the garden in 1771 under Louis XV and scientific experiments were conducted there in public view. In 15 the first manned hot air balloon took off from it. The revolutionaries took the trouble to destroy the front part of the castle and in 1783 they installed a cotton mill and drinking and dancing clubs in its wings. In 1793, Dr. Jules Guérin rented the castle to house an orthopedic hospital. Piano tuner and maker Pierre Érard held prestigious concerts there, starting in 1831, in the presence of composers such as Berlioz, Liszt and Rubinstein.

The castle was not spared military uses either: the general headquarters during the German siege of Paris and the Commune, from 1870 to 1871, the headquarters of the German Navy during the occupation, the headquarters of the American Navy during the liberation. And let's not forget the archbishops of France who honored the castle with their presence at a plenary assembly in 1907 under Pope Pius X.

In 1922, Baron Henri de Rothschild and his wife settled in the castle as their permanent residence after rebuilding it two hundred and fifty meters northwest of its original location. The previous castle was demolished in 1919 with the death of the last heir. After Baron Henri de Rothschild's death in 1947, his heirs sold the castle to the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, the OECE, the father of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD, whose headquarters are located there today. Modern buildings around it house the organization's offices where its employees work.

What is the origin of the name Muette? According to one theory, it is an earlier spelling, until the end of the 18th century, of the word meute, a pack of dogs, and refers to the dogs that accompanied the hunters in the Bois de Boulogne. According to another theory, the word means mue, to shed, and refers to the shedding of deer antlers and the molting of falcons. Deer antlers shed every year between February and May and reach their peak growth before the mating season in September. Deer antlers, which were used to hunt in the Bois de Boulogne, were probably displayed in Charles IX's hunting lodge. Falcons also molt once a year, after the breeding season, for one to two months, and were probably kept during this period in the hunting lodge. All interpretations refer to hunting: hunting dogs, hunting falcons (in the falcons), deer hunting.

And there is another interpretation, unrelated to hunting, which suggests that the word muette, silent, reflects the castle's distance from the king's court. Discreet solitude, far from the noise of the ruler and his entourage.

Near the Moat Castle lies the Marmottan Monet Museum, which was also originally a hunting lodge, that is, a meeting place for hunters where they could dine to their hearts content, chat with their colleagues, change clothes, and replenish equipment. Ranelagh Garden Connects the two sites, between the Moat Castle and the Marmottan Monet Museum. To be precise: the Marmottan Monet Museum is located next to the original park of the Moat Castle, part of which became the property of the municipality in 1860.

Marmottan Monet Museum Musée Marmottan Monet

A short video as an early taster:

Jules Marmottan (1829-1883) was a jurist, mayor, and director of a coal mining company in northern France. His concern for the welfare of miners makes him one of the main figures of the doctrine of paternalism, in the good sense of the word, of course.

In addition to these public activities, Jules Marmottan was also an avid art collector, particularly interested in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In 1882, he bought from François Christophe Edmond Kellermann, the duc de Valmy, his hunting lodge near the Bois de Boulogne and housed there a considerable art collection.

Nefert Vandyke: The village of Passy was annexed to Paris and in 1860 part of it was bought by the municipality. It was a large area that was adjacent to the historic park of the Château de la Motte. Baron Haussmann appointed Adolphe Alphan to turn it into a garden. The area adjacent to this garden of the Six Qataris, which would be Ranelagh Garden, was put up for sale on the condition that the buyers build mansions on it. The Duc de Valmy was one of them. He purchased a large area in 1863, built three mansions and parted with two of them in favor of two buyers. He left behind a 2020-square-meter mansion at 20 Avenue Raphaël. After the Duke's death, his widow and daughter sold one of her buildings, the hunting lodge, to Jules Marmottan in 20.

Jules Marmottan bequeathed the residence to his only son Paul, 1856-1932, for the art collection he had. Paul Marmottan was an art historian and critic (author of many books), as well as a collector and philanthropist like his father. In 1910, he bought land adjacent to the existing property, converted the hunting lodge into a city mansion, and made it his residence. Paul was particularly interested in the period of the First Empire (late 18th and early 19th centuries) and expanded his father's collection. About a decade after his divorce, the woman he was about to marry for a second time died prematurely. Paul was left alone and devoted all his resources to one of his life's works - the city mansion and the luxurious apartments he purchased to decorate it to his taste.

כמו Nelly Jacquemart-André Before him, whose goal was to allow the general public to enjoy all of her treasures after her death, as she had been able to leave them, Paul Marmottan also bequeathed the building and collection to a public institution – the Academy of Fine Arts, for the same purpose upon his death in 1932. In 1934, the Marmottan Museum opened to the public. In the following years, many other collections were donated to the museum, the most famous of which is the collection of works by Claude MonetThanks to these donations, the museum houses the largest collection of Claude Monet's works in the world. This is how the museum's name expanded from Marmottan to Marmottan Monet.

The Jules Marmottan Collection and the Collection of His Son Paul

The museum's atmosphere is permeated by the presence of the collections of Jules and Paul Marmottan. Father Jules' collection displays works by Italian, German, and Flemish painters from the 13th to the 16th centuries (called "primitive painters" because they were the forerunners of the Renaissance), tapestries, and ancient stained glass.

Son Paul's collection displays furniture and art objects from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It also includes works by the most prominent painters of those centuries, including a series of portraits by Louis Boilly, after whom the street on which the museum is located is named.

The halls are impressive and the exhibits are spectacular. Let's take a look at some examples:

Contribution by Paul Marmottan: Giovanni Maria Benzoni, Love and Psyche. Photographed by: Zvi Hazanov

Benzoni sculpted “Love and Psyche” (L'Amour et Psyché) in 1845, but according to some historians, he made eight copies of “Love and Psyche” by the time of his death. The work from the collection of Paul Marmottan, located in the Musée Marmottan Monet, is one of these copies. The original is in the Gallery of Modern Art in Milan.

Benzoni was undoubtedly inspired by the greatest Italian sculptor of the 18th century, Antonio Canova, but took liberties with the famous myth on which the work is based, “Psyche and Cupid” – from the novel “The Golden Ass” by the Roman writer and rhetorician Lucius Apuleius, who lived in the 2nd century AD. In the story from Apuleius’ work, there is no mention of the jug of Styx water between the hands of the two sculpted figures.

And another contribution by Paul Marmottan: Matelin François Thimoté, bronze artist, and Thonissen, wall clock artist, The Quarrel. Photographed by: Zvi Hazanov

This work, called “The Quarrel” (La Brouille), 1810, depicts a couple who have just risen from the bench on which they were sitting. The legs of the bench are shaped like winged, one-legged lions. The man tries to stop the sad woman with her head bowed, who is moving away, who is severing her hand from his. A pair of swans, at the top of the work, on either side of it, hold in their beaks a decorated wreath of leaves, which accentuates the clock face in an arch.

It should be noted that at that time, bronze artists used to draw inspiration from paintings and prints to create their works. Thus, the bronze artist Timothée and the wall clock artist Tounissen combined their talents in this masterpiece based on an eponymous print by the painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, 1798, winner of the Prix de Rome the previous year, with the engraver Louis Darcis.

The print is a diptych with a second print by the same artists called “Pius” (The Accommodation). It is worth seeing The original print And to stand on the inspiration that Timothy, the bronze artist, received from Pierre-Narcisse Gren, the painter. The comparison between the print and the figures on the wall clock is fascinating.

The museum's dining room, as Paul Marmottan left it. Photographed by: Zvi Hazanov

Georges de Bleu Collection

Georges de Bellio, a physician and art collector, was born in 1828 in Bucharest and died in 1894 in Paris, where he settled in 1951. He was wealthy, free from worries about earning a living, which allowed him to pursue his two passions, homeopathy and impressionism, with pleasure. He supported artists, financially and emotionally, treated them without pay, bought their works and built a respectable collection. Georges de Bellio, the homeopathic physician of Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley and Renoir, was one of the first lovers and defenders of impressionist painting, which was relatively rare in his time.

On the occasion of the marriage of his only daughter, Victorine, in 1892, de Béliot asked Renoir to paint her portrait. This was a rare request from de Béliot, who usually bought existing paintings and avoided commissions. Victorine's portrait can be seen at the Musée Marmottan Monet, which he visited in 1940:

Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Mademoiselle Victorine de Belleau. Source: Wikimedia, Public Domain

Victorine de Bellio, who married a nobleman named Eugène Donop de Monchy, continued her father's tradition and nurtured the collection he had inherited from him. She had no children and gradually donated, together with her husband, works from the rich collection to the Musée Marmottan Monet. After her husband's death in 1942, she donated a large part of the collection and before she herself died in 1958, the entire collection.

Donation by Georges de Belliot's daughter: Alfred Sisley, The Ascent or Les Gressets, a Village Near Paris. Source: Wikimedia, Public Domain

Early in their career, the Impressionist painters, especially Édouard Manet (1832-1883), suffered from the sharp criticism of art critics who were unable to stand up to their greatness. The respected critics accused the Impressionists of bad taste, violation of tradition, ignorance, amateurism, lack of talent, pretentiousness, madness, and what not... And the general public did not put their hand in the plate either. People would come to exhibitions to mock, to have fun, to laugh. The artistic revolution brought about by the Impressionists, who dared to rebel against the rules and laws of formal academic painting, achieved full recognition only after the death of Manet, who had fought his whole life to win it.

Louis Leroy, a playwright, landscape painter, and art critic, is not known today for his work but for coining the term “Impressionism” when he mocked Monet’s painting “Impression, Sunrise.” The painting, showing the port of Le Havre in Normandy shrouded in dawn mist, was exhibited in an 1874 exhibition organized by a group of artists whose works had been rejected by the official Salon. Leroy wrote in his article in the satirical illustrated newspaper “Le Charivari,” the first of its kind in the world, which he called “The Exhibition of the Impressionists”:

What does this painting show? Impression! Impression, I had no doubt about it. I also told myself that if I was so impressed, then there must be an impression in the body. …Even wallpaper for the walls is more invested than this seascape.

And so, by a stroke of luck, the condemnation was turned into praise. He came to curse and was found blessing. Louis Leroy (1885-1812), a forgotten art critic, an enemy of Impressionism, gave the movement its name, and thus remained in history thanks to the painters he took such pains to condemn.

The famous painting, “Impression, Sunrise” (Impression, soleil levant), was part of the collection of Georges de Belleau. His daughter Victorine donated it, before her death, to the museum, along with ten other Impressionist works. In doing so, she completely changed its character. From being an enemy of the Impressionists (the Academy of Fine Arts initially condemned the movement and Paul Marmottan did not like it), the museum became their protector and refuge. Moreover, the Musée Marmottan Monet is today identified with the Impressionists and many make pilgrimages to see “Impression, Sunrise.”

Michel Monet Collection

Michel Monet, following in the footsteps of Victorine de Belleau, bequeathed his father's collection to the museum, thus preventing its dispersal. The childless Michel was his father's sole heir. In 1966, Michel Monet, 87, an avid car enthusiast, lost his life in a car accident on the Clemenceau Bridge in Normandy, not far from Giverny.

After his death, the collection was transferred to the museum. The painter's personal belongings, palettes, letters, photographs, and sketchbooks, were also given to the museum. In 1970, the hall that was specially added to the museum to display Monet's paintings was inaugurated. This hall was built based on the two oval halls where Monet's "Water Lilies" are displayed in the museum. The OrangeryThus, in one place, it is possible to trace the artist's aesthetic and technical development, from the caricatures of the notables of Le Havre and Paris that he painted in his youth to his paintings of Geno. In GivernyThe large collection that Michel Monet donated to the museum also includes pictures by many other Impressionists, most of whom were close to the painter, such as Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Berthe Morisot, and more.

Georges Wildenstein Collection

In 1980, Daniel Wildenstein, a member of a famous art dealer family, donated his father, Georges,’s collection of illustrated manuscripts, over 100 exhibits illustrating the art of illustration from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The dim “Georges Wildenstein Hall” on the first floor displays the rare collection, one of the largest in the world, featuring works from the English, French, Italian, and Flemish schools from the 13th to the 16th centuries. Some of the illustrations are signed by famous painters such as Jean Foucault, Jean Bordischon, Sanno di Pietro, Girolamo da Cremona, Giulio Clovio, and more.

Contributed by Daniel Wildenstein: Jean Bourdichon, The Kiss of Judas, 1498. Source: Wikimedia, in the public domain

Henri Duham Collection

In 1985, the adopted daughter of the painter, art critic and writer Henri Duhem donated to the museum the collection of her father and his wife Marie, also a painter. The collection contains over 100 photographs, watercolors and bronze sculptures, mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries, including works by Bodin, Breton, Carrier, Corot, Gauguin, and more.

Henri Douam, a scion of an old Flemish family, was born in 1860 in the city of Douai in northern France. In 1890 he married the painter Marie Sergeant and the following year their son, Rémy, was born. In the village where they spent every summer, Camille (Camiers), would meet, starting in 1889, with a group of artists known as the “Vissan School” (Wissant School), who all came to paint the northern landscapes. Duam left his job as a lawyer and devoted himself to his art. With the encouragement of his close friend PissarroHis works are exhibited abroad, including in Chicago, Prague and Madrid. Henri and Marie made frequent trips to Paris, London, Italy, Belgium, Holland and North Africa. They continued to spend their summers at their beloved lakeside home, in the company of their painter and sculptor friends.

Marie Duham, “The White House,” the village house in Kamiya. Source: Wikimedia, in the public domain

The period of happiness ended when their only son, Remi, also a painter and a promising future, was killed on June 20, 1915, in the First World War, in the bloody battles for control of the Epargge ridge. Remi was 24 when he fell. Marie sank into a deep depression and died 3 years later in the city of Douai, under German occupation, in difficult conditions. She was 47 when she died of cancer.

Henri found the mental strength to continue his public work for his city during its liberation and also worked for the local museum. In 1922, he published his autobiographical book, The Death of the House, which recounts his double grief.The death of the fireplace). Between the two world wars, Henri continued his extensive artistic activity and divided his time between Paris and Douai. Faced with the threats of war, he chose to leave the beloved north for which he had done so much and move to the south of France, to a villa in Juan-les-Pins, along with his large art collection to ensure that it would not be damaged. His health deteriorated, and in 1941, 4 years after moving, he died.

Henri Duham, “Villa Mont Riant”, Jean Le Pen, 1940. Source: Wikimedia, in the public domain

He bequeathed his important Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection, which he had accumulated over many years, to his wife's niece, Nellie Serge-Duham, the adopted daughter who had cared for him during his illness. Nellie continued to live in the villa in Juan-les-Pins until 1980, when she moved to a retirement home in Cannes. After breaking into the villa a few years later, she decided to donate the collection to the Academy of Fine Arts, of which the Marmottan Museum is one of its institutions.

Contribution by Nelly Sergeen-Duham: Paul Gauguin, Bouquet of Flowers, 1884. Source: Wikimedia, Public Domain

Berthe Morisot Collection

The museum also includes many works (around eighty, paintings and drawings) by Bert Morisot (Berthe Morisot), a central figure in the Impressionist movement and one of the women who bravely, determinedly and persistently made her way in a world that had long been reserved for men only. Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was born, lived and breathed to paint. “The sole purpose of my existence is painting,” she wrote to her beloved sister Edma in 1871, when difficult political events, a war against an external enemy, Prussia, followed by an internal war, the Paris Commune, prevented her from taking up a brush.

Most of the works came to the museum in 1993 from the estate of the painter's grandson, Denis Rouart, one of the three sons of her daughter Julie Manet and her husband Ernest Rouart. Three years later, the estate of Denis' brother, Julian Rouart, will arrive at the museum, which includes three more paintings and furniture from his grandmother's living room. The Rouart family donated 3 paintings by Berthe Morisot and a unique collection of her drawings and other works by other painters.

Berthe cultivated close friendships with Manet, Monet, Puvis de Chabanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Fantin-Latour, Degas, and others. Together they would exchange models and opinions, exhibit at exhibitions, meet frequently for dinners, and go on vacations. All of Berthe Morisot's painter friends highly regarded her and treated her as an equal artist, and if she influenced them, they were also influenced by her. Berthe was particularly close to Édouard Manet and often served as his model.

His painting “The Balcony” (1868), in which Berthe Morisot is seen sitting on the left, and “Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets” (1872), in which Manet’s favorite color, black, occupies a prominent place (both of these paintings are on display at the Musée Dorset). Manet’s death at the age of 51 from syphilis, which he contracted in his youth in Brazil, was a severe blow to his loyal friend who became his sister-in-law. Berthe and her husband Eugène Manet, Edouard Manet’s brother, are buried in the family estate in Passy, ​​along with Edouard and his wife Suzanne.

Eugène Manet, who was an amateur painter, understood Barthes' heart and supported her career with endless devotion and devotion. Eugène served as his wife's agent, thus relieving her of all practical, administrative, and organizational hassles. The couple had an only daughter, Julie (1878-1966), who appears in over 70 of Barthes' works. Julie's birth filled Barthes' heart with joy and happiness, as she discovered motherhood at a relatively late age. Until Barthes's death from pneumonia at the age of 54, when Julie was only 17, mother and daughter were never separated for a single moment. Julie's appearance in Barthes' life opened new doors for her art, which became more mature and personal. In the last years of her life, the contours of Barthes' works became increasingly blurred, thus opening the way for abstract painting.

Berthe Morisot, Self-portrait, 1885. Source: Wikimedia, in the public domain

Before we experience a sensational robbery at the museum, in which fortunately no one was physically harmed, and visit the interesting boutique with many exhibits, we watched a short video summarizing the various donations:

The art heist of the century at the Marmottan Monet Museum

On October 27, 1985, five armed and masked men entered the Marmottan Monet Museum, about fifteen minutes after it opened. It was a quiet Sunday morning. According to eyewitnesses, a car, the trunk of which was left open, was double-parked in front of the museum, and its passengers joined their accomplices who were already inside. Three of the robbers, at gunpoint, forced the eight museum guards and fifty visitors into one of the rooms and forced them to lie on the floor. Two others took seven paintings from the wall and removed two others from a glass case. The daring and well-planned robbery lasted only a few minutes. Among the paintings was the museum’s crown jewel, its center of attraction – Claude Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise.”

The police investigation, which linked this robbery with a previous one, revealed that a Japanese mafia member, who had spent five years in a French prison for selling heroin, had used the opportunity to establish ties with local criminals there. The international collaboration did not bear the hoped-for fruit despite its initial success: the paintings, estimated to be worth $5 million, were unsellable. What art dealer would dare to buy the famous masterpieces?

In the home of the Japanese robber, whose artistic taste is beyond doubt, a catalog of the Marmottan Monet Museum was found, with the stolen paintings circled: 5 by Monet, 2 by Renoir, including a portrait of Monet, another portrait of Monet by a Japanese painter, and another painting by Berthe Morisot, depicting a young woman with a fan. Even hardened gangsters considered the painter to be equal to her well-known colleagues Monet and Renoir…

Berthe Morisot, at the Ball, 1875 (the painting that was stolen). Source: Wikimedia, in the public domain

After several failed attempts by the French government to negotiate with the robbers, the paintings were found in a villa in Porto-Vecchio, Corsica, in December 1990 in fairly good condition. The damage was repaired, and thus, after five years of disappearance, Monet, Renoir, and Morisot returned to their home.

The museum boutique

At the end of the visit, you will arrive at the museum's boutique, which is filled with art books for adults and children in different languages, catalogs, notebooks, writing instruments, and more. The accompanying products are particularly original: shirts, scarves, bags, jewelry, watches, and perfumes inspired by the works of Claude Monet. If not to buy, then to enjoy.

“Claude’s Flower”, a men’s perfume inspired by nymphaea. Source: anchorstore

to the museum website

Want to live within a fifteen-minute walk of the museum?

You can rent a spacious apartment on Avenue Paul Doumer where Zvi Hazanov (the Francophile) lived in April 2025. This is a fully equipped and luxurious apartment from which you can go out and discover the charms of the 16th arrondissement. For information about it, go to Link to this.

Alternatively, you can rent another spacious apartment from the same owners, on Nicolo Street, where the author of the article, Dr. Orna Lieberman, lived in April 2023. From the apartment, within a few minutes' walk, you are at Ranelagh Garden and the Marmottan Monet Museum. In this link Orna gives recommendations about the environment.

Arriving at the museum

Getting here

2, rue Louis-Boilly, 75016 Paris – France
Tel. : + 33 (0)1 44 96 50 33

Metro
line 9, stop: La Muette or Ranelagh

RER
line C, stop: Boulainvilliers

Buses
Line 22, stop: La Muette–Boulainvilliers
Line 32, stop: Louis Boilly or Ingres
Line 52, stop: La Muette–Boulainvilliers
Line 63, stop: Porte de la Muette
Line 70, stop: Louis-Boilly or Ingres
Line PC 1, stop: Ernest Hebert or Porte de Passy