Monet’s House, Giverny, France

 

With its original pink plaster and green woodwork, surrounding flowers and trees, the house of French artist Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926) is located in Giverny, northwest of Paris, in France.

 

Monet’s had eight children, so the house is large and spacious, with his garden (Clos Normand) and water garden spreading out on the flat land.

 

The Ground Floor has the studio, the Blue Room, the dining room and the kitchen. The interior design remains true to how the rooms were in Monet’s time. Monet’s studio has his own reconstructed paintings on display, as well as around the house. The dining room showcases Monet’s collection of Japanese prints. The collection is composed of 46 prints by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), 23 by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and 48 by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), plus 32 prints held in reserve.

 

The visit begins with the reading room (the little Blue Room), next to the pantry, then the artist’s first studio, in which he worked until 1899. This room later became a sitting room, where coffee was served, with English-style cane chairs.

 

The dining room has been restored with precision. The furniture, painted yellow, was considered very modern at the time. In the glass cabinets are displayed blue earthenware crockery and the yellow and blue set that Monet used for special occasions. In the kitchen, with its blue Rouen tiles, there is a large cooker with multiple ovens and the copper utensils on display.

 

The First Floor has all the bedrooms – Monet’s bedroom (which was renovated in 2013 including reproductions of paintings by his friends: Cézanne, Renoir, Signac, and Caillebotte) and those of his second wife Alice Hoschedé and her daughter, Blanche Hoschedé, who was one of Monet’s students and also the wife of his son (she lived in Giverny until her death in 1947). Next to Alice’s bedroom is a tiny sewing room. In 2014, Blanche’s room was restored and refurnished as close to its original state as possible, featuring several floral tapestries and pieces of pine furniture.

Monet lived and worked here for 43 years, until his death in 1926.

 

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).