Last week I was happy to share the story behind one of my favorite Claude Monet paintings but did you know one of his most famous pieces is also linked to the Hoschede’s. If you missed last week you can find it on my website here.
Now back to that famous painting and this is why I love history and the stories of art so much and while research on one thing sends me down a long and winding rabbit hole.
On November 13, 1872, in the harbor of Le Havre out the window of the Hotel de l’Armirauté Monet captured the sunrise. The glowing orange sun reflected across the water would go on to give the name to the entire movement we know as Impressionism. Before the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 Monet named the painting Impression and when critic Louis Leroy saw it he transferred the name to the entire group.
At the time the Academic world of art thought these ragtag group of artists that painted outside in the elements were nuts and the name didn’t help.
The exhibit was held from April 15 to May 15, 1874, in the studio of photographer Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines. One day Ernest Hoschede walked in and saw Monet’s Impression and purchased it for 800 francs. It hung in the Chateau de Rottembourg until it was seized by the authorities in 1877 and sold at auction for just 210 francs. Dr. Georges de Bellio was the lucky winner of such a bargain and passed it down to his daughter until she left it to the Musée Marmottan Monet in 1940 after her death.
The Musee Marmottan Monet is a gem of a museum on the edge of Paris. Originally a hunting lodge to the Duc de Valmy it was purchased in 1882 by Jules Marmottan who had a large collection of items from the First Empire. His son Paul expanded the collection and upon his death, the home and collection were gifted to the Academie des Beaux-Arts.
In 1934 it was opened as a museum and over the years would be greatly enhanced by two generous donations. In 1966, Michael Monet, the only surviving child of the great artists gave his entire collection which is the largest concentrated catalog of Monet in the world. In 1985 Nelly Duhem, daughter of artist Henri Duhem bequeathed her father’s vast Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings of the French masters.
Another event happened that same year that made headlines around the world. It was an early Sunday morning just after 10 am on October 27, 1985, two ticket-holding gents strolled into the museum. A few minutes later, three masked men with guns pushed their way in, forced everyone to the ground, and quickly searched out 9 specific paintings they ripped from the wall. Two Renoirs, a painting by Berthe Morisot, and five Monets that also included Impression, Sunrise, and was gone in a matter of minutes.
For two years there wasn’t a single lead until the commissioner of the art theft department Mirielle Balestrazzin tracked down four stolen Cortot paintings in Japan. Stolen from Eastern France in 1984 the paintings were linked to the head of the Japanese crime syndicate Yakuza, Shuinichi Fujikuma. Fujikuma had his hands in everything and in 1978 he was caught with over 7 kilos of heroin in France and sentenced to five years in a French prison. Locked away he met two other French prisoners locked away for art thefts, Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun, and hatched a plan.
Fast forward to 1987 and Balestrazzin paying him a visit in Japan. The Cortots were recovered and a series of investigations of his phone records found some odd details. It didn’t help that they found the Marmottan museum catalog where he had circled each of the 9 paintings that were stolen. Somehow the paintings were taken from Paris to Japan and then sent to Corsica where they were discovered in an empty villa in Porto-Vecchio. However, it took three long years to put that all together and recover the treasured paintings.
On April 17, 1991, after some minor restoration, they returned to the walls of the Marmottan and you can see them in all their glory. Impression, Sunrise sits downstairs on the lower level and you can’t miss it as you walk down the stairs. When I first laid eyes on it they didn’t allow photos but I snuck a quick very crooked pic now you can snap away all you want. However, make sure you sit there on the bench in front of it and take it all in.
When it comes to art it’s not just the painting you see on the canvas that is so fascinating. It is the story with all its twists and turns that is so wonderful that the piece is just waiting for you to discover.
Visit the Musée Marmottan Monet at 2 rue Louis Boilly 16e, open Tuesday-Sunday 10 am - 6 pm. They also hold two fantastic exhibits a year.
