We will start the day with a visit to the Musée Marmottan-Monet, guided by your tour guide Pascal Bonafoux.

Situated in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the Musée Marmottan-Monet is housed in the former mansion of Paul Marmottan, an art historian and specialist in the Consulate and the Empire. Collector and patron of the arts, he bequeathed the mansion and his private collection to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1932. The mansion became a museum two years later and houses today the most important Impressionist collection in Paris thanks to a succession of diverse and significant donations. First, in 1957, eleven major artists paintings were bequeathed to the museum: Morisot, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Monet, including the famous “Impression, soleil levant”. Then, the museum received the collection of Michel Monet, son of the famous painter, as well as that of Berthe Morisot’s family, a doyenne of the Impressionist movement. You’re guaranteed to fall in love with this museum!

After lunch we will then continue to the Musée d’Orsay for a visit of the “Paris 1874” exhibition, still guided by your tour guide Pascal Bonafoux.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris, the Musée d’Orsay is staging a major event with “Paris 1874 – Inventing Impressionism”. Featuring almost 130 artworks, the exhibition brings a fresh look to the circumstances that led 31 artists to come together to exhibit their work.

This first day will end smoothly and calmly with a Tea time.

Evening at leisure.

Optional night at Brach Hotel in Paris.

In the morning, we will be heading to Giverny to discover Claude Monet’s house and gardens. This visit will be complemented by a visit to the Musée des impressionnismes in Giverny.

The museum aims to introduce us to Impressionism in the broadest sense of the term and also to explore the beginnings and consequences of this movement. The museum’s location also gives meaning to this mission.

Lunch will be held in a bucolic setting at the Moulin de Fourges, just a few minutes away from the museum.

After lunch, the tour continues at Honfleur, to the Eugène Boudin Museum.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Impressionism in 1874, the museum is holding an exhibition devoted to Impressionism and the Sea. Through the works of artists such as Eugène Boudin, Johan Barthold Jongkind, Claude Monet, Gustave Courbet and Paul Gauguin, this exhibition will offer a new vision of the Impressionist artists’ attraction to the sea..

The day will end with a dinner and an overnight stay at the hotel L’invitation au voyage.

In the morning, you will enjoy the magnificent site of the Saint-Siméon Farm. You can try your hand at a watercolour painting class with an artist, which will take place in the gallery, in the gardens or facing the estuary, depending on the weather.

We’ll be back on the road in the late morning, heading for Rouen.

Rouen is one of France’s most beautiful cities. Its admirably preserved historic centre offers some superb walks, with its 2,000 timber-framed houses, its Gros Horloge clock tower and its cathedral, immortalised in 28 paintings by Monet at different times of the day (and in different light!). The Normandy capital also boasts a magnificent Musée des Beaux-Arts, with some very impressive collections of Impressionist art: Monet, of course, but also Sisley, Renoir, Pissarro, Caillebotte… In addition to its permanent exhibition, the museum also displays around ten masterpieces by Dufy, along with paintings by Vallotton and Chagall. 

Lunch will be served at the L’Odas restaurant (1 Michelin star), which has prepared a seasonal menu for the occasion.

In the afternoon, we will enjoy the last visit of our escapade to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, accompanied and guided by your tour guide Pascal Bonafoux..

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen will also be honouring Englishman David Hockney, a living legend in the art world. His Californian pool scenes may have made him famous, but it was in Normandy that he chose to settle several years ago. The British artist has a boundless admiration for Impressionism. After his exploration of digital techniques, Hockney is making a major return to painting, and a new series of Normandy landscapes will be shown for the first time..

Return to Paris in the late afternoon.

Optional night at hotel Brach in Paris.

PASCAL BONAFOUX

Art Historian and author

Although Impressionism was ” named ” in 1874, after Monet’s painting ” Impression, soleil levant “, it had appeared a few years earlier, in Le Havre to be exact. It was there that Monet had a decisive encounter with Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, who invited him to paint en plein air. It was then that he discovered, and brought to light, a light that the official painting of the time was still ignoring.

Monet then brought the friends he had met in Paris to Normandy. They would go to Le Havre, or even Honfleur, where the Saint-Siméon farmhouse, overlooking the Seine estuary, became a studio. They would sometimes meet up with Baudelaire, who would convince Manet of the need to paint modern life – a heresy in the eyes of the members of the Salon jury, the Institut and the École des Beaux-Arts.

It has taken a quarter of a century for the paintings of the Impressionists to finally cease to be the object of scandal and scorn.

What is remarkable and incomparable in the history of painting is that the Impressionist movement was not a “school”, but a requirement that led each artist to assert his own individuality. There is no question of confusing a Monet with a Renoir, a Caillebotte with a Morisot, a Bazille with a Cézanne….

Year after year, the subjects they chose and the light they showed attracted painters from all over Europe and the United States, where their dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, had “exported” them.

Without them, Paris would never have become the international capital of art that it was until the 1930s.

 Pascal Bonafoux