When the owner of the Villa Saint-Louis in Poissy where
Claude Monet had lived since 17 December 1881 threatened to take him to court over unpaid rent, Monet was able to obtain a stay of execution before he would be evicted on the 15 April 1883. As a result, Monet began looking for an affordable house to rent close to Paris to keep in contact with the dealers and the art scene but sufficiently far enough away from its rivalries and gossip, particularly because he was living with a married woman, Alice Hoschedé. He wanted a house large enough to accommodate his extended Monet-Hoschedé family of 10; consisting of himself, his 5 and 15 year old sons as well as Alice and her six children ranging in age from 5 to 19. As he wanted to live in Normandy and somewhere downstream from
Poissy and close to enough to a boarding school which Michel Monet and Jean-Pierre Hoschedé could attend. From his carriage he discovered
Giverny, a small village of 279 inhabitants. Surrounded by small farms, it was home to a blacksmith, three mills, a school and had a railway station. It was also across the Seine from the town of Vernon, which offers a school which the older children could attend. During Monet's lifetime four trains ran along the line on all days except Sunday. At the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris Monet is believed to have seen a display of hybrid water lilies developed from reddish flowers and met their creator, the horticulturist Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac. Why Monet needed Durand-Ruel financial assistance is unknown as since 1886, when Durand-Ruel had unlocked the American market for him, Monet had enjoyed growing wealth. In 1889, the sale of just one of his paintings – ‘The Seine at Vétheuil’ – had earned Monet 7,900 francs, while the "15 Haystacks" exhibition of 4 May 1891 had been profitable, with fellow artist Pissarro reporting, “Soon after opening, everything had sold for three to four thousand each!” The sale was finalized on 17 November 1890 in the offices of Maître Grimpard, a notary in Vernon. He then remained in France for the rest of his life creating Japanese gardens for
Robert de Montesquiou, Hugues Krafft as well as
Edmond James de Rothschild at Boulogne-sur-Seine. In 1892 the first gardener was hired by Monet, which by 1904 had increased to six full time gardeners under the leadership of Felix Breuil. Breuil had been recruited with the assistance of
Octave Mirbeau, as he was the son of the gardener who worked for Mirbeau's father. By early September 1892 work was underway on the construction of new glasshouse on the property. He also purchased many of his plants from the gardeners of Rouen. Regarding gardening, Monet declared: "What is there to say about me? What can there be to say, I ask you, about a man who is interested in nothing in the world but his painting - and also his garden and his flowers. On 5 February 1893, ten years after his arrival at Giverny, Monet bought the piece of land opposite his property on the other side of the railway line, with plans to create a water garden on it. On 27 July 1893 the Prefect approved Monet's application. Monet was despondent, his wife recording in a letter to her daughter Germaine, “Monet more and more excessive (everything is lost, things will never come back, he must sell the house, the car.)” which he moved around on castors. Monet admitted “I am ashamed to have had it built, I who always scream at those who make Giverny ugly.” Louis Gillet, after a visit in the 1920s, wrote: “It was in summer that you had to see him, in this famous garden which is his luxury and his glory, and for which he did follies as a king for a mistresses, … the nymphéas pond was the master’s jewel, the nymph with whom he was in love.”
Death of Monet When Claude Monet died on 5 December 1926, leaving no will As a result,
Blanche Hoschedé Monet, the daughter of Monet's second wife
Alice and widow of his eldest son,
Jean, continued to live in the house. She altered nothing, maintaining the property with the help of the former head gardener, Louis Lebret. She also began to paint again, notable works being
The Flower Lawn and
On the Bridge. She also bought up her great-nephew Jean-Marie Toulgouat (1927–2006), who was the only child of Lily Butler and Roger Toulgouat. In the early 1950s, while studying art at the
Beaux-Arts de Paris in Paris, the American artist
Ellsworth Kelly visited Monet's property at Giverny. He was inspired by the paintings that sat unloved in Monet's studio to create a painting he titled
Tableau Vert immediately upon his return to Paris. Michel Monet died in a car accident in 1966. Having no heirs, he bequeathed, at the instigation of Jean Moreau, mayor of
Sorel-Moussel, the Giverny estate as well as his father's remaining paintings and art collection to the
Académie des Beaux-Arts. Immediately following his death a police guard was put in place at both his residence at Sorel-Moussel and at Giverny to prevent any intrusion into the properties. A few days later, in the presence of
Emmanuel Bondeville, permanent secretary of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, an inventory was carried out by Maître Bourdon, a notary from Abondant, of Michel Monet's residence in Sorel-Moussel. There were 91 paintings and drawings: 48 of them works by Claude Monet, four works by
Auguste Renoir, as well as paintings and drawings by
Edgar Degas,
Eugène Boudin,
Gustave Caillebotte,
Berthe Morisot,
Paul Signac and
Alfred Sisley. They transferred the artworks to the
Musée Marmottan. While
Jacques Carlu, who was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and, as such, curator of the
Musée Marmottan, did not have sufficient financial resources to undertake a major restoration of Giverny. He nevertheless rebuilt the roof, protected the prints, which were already showing signs of damage, and moved what was left of the painting collection at Giverny to the Musée Marmottan. A report broadcast on 15 March 1966 on the
ORTF channel, almost two months after Michel Monet's death, shows the house in Giverny as it was then. The report shows numerous paintings, which have just been inventoried, as well as the painter's studio, in a state of abandonment. The visit was guided by Guy Bourdon, the notary responsible for administering the estate's legacy,
Restoration Following Jacques Carlu's death in 1977, the Académie des Beaux-Arts asked (1912–2001), With insufficient funds available from the Académie des Beaux-Arts and the
Eure Departmental Council, Van der Kemp, as he had successfully done at Versailles, turned to private American benefactors for financial help, expanding the Versailles Foundation to include Giverny. The first significant benefactress was flower lover and a longtime art patron
Lila Acheson Wallace, who already owned several Monet's. Others quickly followed, among them members of the
Mellon family as well as philanthropist
Walter Annenberg. Annenberg funded an underpass to allowed visitors to walk from the
Clos Normand to the water garden without having to cross the busy
Chemin du Roy. By the time the estate was opened to the public, approximately 95 percent of the restoration cost of US$7 million had been met by private contributions, the majority via the Versailles Foundation-Giverny Inc. of New York. These American donations were part of the American tradition of private giving as well as the tax concessions that encourage it. These tax concessions had existed since 1969 when U.S. President
Richard M. Nixon approved a change to the American tax code that allowed Americans to claim tax deductions for their contributions to charities. Nixon encouraged Americans to donate to France. "I felt that encouraging Americans to contribute to the heritage of France, one of our oldest allies, would be one way to remind ourselves that the past in many ways is infinitely more important than the present." The pond had to be dug again. In the Clos Normand, soil was removed to find the original ground level. Then the same flower species as those used by Monet in his time were planted." became the curator of the Fondation Claude Monet and continued renovating the property until her death in 2008. She was succeeded as director in March 2008 by
Hugues Gall, who remained in that position until his death at the age of 84 in May 2024. To satisfy demand Gall opened the site seven days a week. In 2011 the studio salon was reconstructed with the help of Sylvie Patin, Honorary General Curator of Heritage at the
Musée d'Orsay and Correspondent of the Institute. As one of the most visited tourist destinations in France, Monet’s garden at Giverny is protected by long term strategies ensuring its ongoing preservation. == Description ==