150 years ago this month, the first Impressionists exhibition opened, although it went by a different and much longer name.
The Limited Company of Artists, Painters, Sculpteurs, Engravers, etc was established on December 27, 1873 by Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, and Beliard. On April 15, 1874, in the former photography studio of Nadar, the exhibition opened, to a small crowd. The first 10 days were quiet until Louis Leroy from the Le Charivari attended and wrote an article that was published on April 25, 1874.
"Impression, I was sure. I also thought to myself, since I am impressed, there must be an impression in it... And what freedom, what ease in the bill! The wallpaper in the embryonic state is even more done than this.” As an artist and engraver himself, he was a bit harsh, but everyone was at the time against this band of rebels.
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.
We will talk more about this exhibition in the next few weeks, but this week I want to share the story of the painting that named the movement with some surprising turns I rarely see mentioned.
Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris at no 45 Rue Lafitte a place later famous for its art galleries that supported the Impressionists. In 1845 the Monet family moved to Le Havre and at 11 he began to sketch in the margins of his school books and caricatures of people in the town. After his mother died in 1857, he turned to focus on art full-time and returned to Paris in 1859.
For years Monet struggled to make money. He borrowed from many of his friends after his father cut him off because of his relationship with Camille. One of his most famous paintings in the Orsay, Dejeune sur l’Herbe, his response to Manet’s version was used as collateral for a house he rented and was almost destroyed. In 1868 he attempted to kill himself by jumping into the Seine when his financial difficulties became too much.
Hard to imagine today when just about every museum in the world owns a Claude Monet painting. (in 2019 a Monet haystack painting sold for 110 million dollars) But today we are going to share the story of one of his most important Impressions. The Impression, Sunrise.
On November 13, 1872, at 7:35 am in the harbor of Le Havre out the window of the Hotel de l’Armirauté (Are-Me-Raw-Tee) at no 43 on the Grand Quai, Monet captured the sunrise. A quick passing moment in time on a quiet morning. The exact date and time were deducted by researchers at the Musée Marmottan Monet by consulting tide charts and weather history. The smoke from the smokestacks flowing west nailed the extract moment of the day, which also happens to be before the master of color’s birthday.
On this early morning as Monet looked out his window, his easel at the ready he saw in the distance through the foggy horizon the Quai au Bois on the left of the canvas, the Transatlantic Lock in the center, and the Courbe dock on the right. Today much of that view has changed sadly and the hotel is no longer there but stand in front of this canvas and let your mind wander.
Working quickly the paint was layered on in one wet layer after another. The predominantly grey and blue scale painting’s most important element was added later after the painting had dried. The glowing orange sun rising over the dock is essential to the feeling you get from the painting but it is the reflection on the water that really moves the soul. Can you even imagine this painting without it?
In 1874, when it was presented for the first exhibition Monet was asked to give a title [to my painting], for the catalog; It could not really pass for a view of Le Havre; I answered, “Put Impression”.
Monet captured the landscape of Le Havre many times and even a few from the same window. Other scenes are found at the J. Paul Getty Museum in LA and the Musee Barberri in Germany.
The exhibit was held from April 15 to May 15, 1874, in the studio of photographer Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines. Wealthy Parisian Ernest Hoschedé arrived one day and found a painting that spoke to him and purchased it immediately for 800 francs (3500 euros today)
Hoschedé was born in Paris on December 18, 1837, in the 9th to a family that made their fortune in the textile industry and department stores. By 1861, Ernest was the head of the family business and bank account. On April 16, 1863, he married Alice who came from a wealthier family and also came with a chateau eleven miles outside of Paris in Montgeron.
The Chateau de Rottembourg needed an update and Ernest used his large checkbook to invite the artists to his home to decorate the walls.
Hoscehdé met Claude Monet in the Parc Monceau and offered him the same opportunity and since Monet needed the money and Manet told him it was a pretty cushy job he took him up on the offer. Hanging on the wall upon his arrival was the Impression, Sunrise a painting that in retrospect was such a monumental moment, but barely registered more than a mention for close to 100 years.
In 1876, two years after the exhibition after spending time in Argenteuil, Claude Monet wanted to find some new subject matter to paint. Wealthy French businessman and avid collector Ernest Hoschedé had already invited Édouard Manet out to his chateau earlier in the year and commissioned him to paint a few pieces. Manet’s pieces would never be hung and kept in his atelier until his death.
Ernest burned through all their money and was forced to hold two anonymous auctions for a few dozen paintings by Sisley, Monet, and Pissarro that didn’t reap the rewards he had hoped. In 1877 his chateau and collection were seized and sold. 138 pieces by Renoir, Sisley, Morisot, Pissarro, Manet, and Monet were sold including Impression. Sunrise. Sold at auction for just 210 francs, Dr. Georges de Bellio was the lucky winner of such a bargain. At the time the market was flooded with Impressionists and few were buying them. It drove down the value of many of them and left many of the artists bitter.
Georges de Bellio was a Bucharest art collector born February 20, 1828, who moved to Paris and became a naturopathic doctor opening a small shop when he wasn’t amassing art. His only child, Victorine was born in 1863 and would add her name to the long story of Monet’s Sunrise.
Bellio and Monet began a friendship over letters and vowed to keep the paintings until his death. Frequently asking for money, Monet always repaid the doctor in art a deal that was very beneficial for Bellio. His collection would include everything from Botticelli to Hubert Robert and Delacroix to Manet & Morisot. On January 26, 1894, he died and his entire collection was passed down to his daughter and her husband, Eugene Donop de Monchy.
The two lived at 6 rue de l’Abbaye on the corner of the Rue de Furstemberg where the atelier and museum of Delacroix are located. Impression hung on the wall alongside Le Gare Saint Lazare and Le Pont de l’Europe which were the real stars of the collection and highly sought after for exhibitions.
Records show that the two were highly insured for as much as 250,000 francs but the Impression, Sunrise rarely was asked for and insured for under 15,000 francs. A painting that is so highly linked to one of the most beloved schools of painting in the world didn’t matter.
In 1939 as Hitler was marching toward Western Europe and thirsty for art it wasn’t just the Louvre that sprung into action. Jacques Jaujard had also assisted other museums including the Musée Marmottan and collectors in protecting their art.
The Musée 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. Victorine had already talked with the museum that she wanted to gift a portion of the collection to the museum that she remembered visiting with her father. Director Henri Le Riche urged her to add her painting to the convoy headed to the Chateau de Chambord in September 1938. After the Munich agreement and what was thought to be the end of a conflict at the end of the month, the plans were halted but in less than a year it was a full-scale movement.
On August 28, 1939, two cases were sent to the Chateau de Lauroy a location specifically chosen by the Marmottan, Victorine sent 6 Monets and a handful of Pisarro, Sisley, Morisot, and Renoirs that would spend the war next to the collection of the Louvre.
During the war in 1940, she decided to give the two cases to the Marmottan intended for a room of the museum dedicated to her father. Her husband died during the war in 1942 and another gift was valued at 4 million francs that included Chinese pottery, furniture, and more Impressionists.
Although, not so fast said the Academy of Art. The Marmottan is run by the Institute de France and the Academy of Art and has the right of refusal on donations. They felt a room named for her father was a step too far and refused the donation. Over the next five years, many lawyers and even the Minister of Education stepped in. After a rewriting of the donation in 1947 it was accepted but reduced to just 10 paintings and a few objets d’art.
On February 29, 1949, at 4 pm the collection was inaugurated and was only the 4th time Impression, Sunrise was seen although still only went by “impression”. Although few were impressed when they saw it.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the exhibition in 1974, Hélène Adhémar, curator of the Louvre, and Jeu de Paume organized a temporary exhibition. She wrote a catalog that included a full-page reproduction of Sunrise, for the first time. In 1946, John Rewald wrote the first comprehensive history of the Impressionists and mentioned the moment Louis Leroy coined the term but still didn’t give the painting Mona Lisa status.
Arguably, it is still pretty unknown and only recently mentioned often with the 150th anniversary of the exhibition.
Much like the Mona Lisa, Impression, Sunrise had its moment on the run that is rarely ever mentioned.
It was an early Sunday morning just after 10 am on October 27, 1985, two ticket-holding gents strolled into the Musée Marmottan Monet. A few minutes later, three masked men with guns pushed their way in, forced everyone to the ground, and quickly searched out nine specific paintings they ripped from the wall. Two Renoirs, a painting by Berthe Morisot, and five Monets that also included Impression, Sunrise, and were 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.
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 to the Marmottan Monet. In 1985 Nelly Duhem, daughter of artist Henri Duhem bequeathed her father’s vast Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings of the French masters.
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.