Musée Marmottan-Monet
Encyclopedia
Musée Marmottan Monet is located at 2, rue Louis Boilly in the XVIe arrondissement
of Paris
. It features a collection of over three hundred Impressionist
and Post-Impressionist
works by Claude Monet
(with the largest collection of his works in the world), Berthe Morisot
, Edgar Degas
, Édouard Manet
, Alfred Sisley
, Camille Pissarro
, Paul Gauguin
, Paul Signac
and Pierre-Auguste Renoir
. In addition it houses the Wildenstein Collection
of illuminated manuscript
s and the Jules and Paul Marmottan collection of Napoleonic era art and furniture as well as Italian and Flemish primitive paintings.
The nearest métro station is La Muette
.
was purchased by Jules Marmottan in 1882 who later left it to his son Paul Marmottan. Marmottan moved into the lodge and, with an interest in the Napoleonic era, he expanded his father's collection of paintings, furniture and bronzes. Marmottan bequeathed his home and collection to the Académie des Beaux-Arts
. The Académie opened up the house and collection as the Museum Marmottan in 1934.
Though originally a showcase for pieces from the First Empire
, the nature of the museum's collection began to change with two major donations. In 1957, Victorine Donop de Monchy gave the museum an important collection of Impressionist works that had belonged to her father, Doctor Georges de Bellio, physician to Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Sisley and Renoir, and an early supporter of the Impressionist movement. In 1966, Claude Monet's second son, Michel Monet, left the museum his own collection of his father's work, thus creating the world's largest collection of Monet paintings.
Jacque Carlu, then curator of the museum, built a special exhibition space for the Monet collection in a lower level of the museum. Inspired by the hall designed for Monet's Water Lilies
murals in the Musée de l'Orangerie
, the large, open room allows visitors to see a progression of Monet's work, as well as to view his canvases both up close and from afar. One of the most notable pieces in the museum is Monet's Impression, Sunrise
(Impression, Soleil Levant), the painting from which the Impressionist movement took its name. The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan in 1985, but recovered five years later and returned to the permanent exhibit in 1991.
s at the security and visitors entered the museum and stole nine paintings from the collection. Among them were Impression, Sunrise
(Impression, Soleil Levant) by Claude Monet
, the painting from which the Impressionism
movement took its name. Aside from that also stolen were Camille Monet and Cousin on the Beach at Trouville, Portrait of Jean Monet, Portrait of Poly, Fisherman of Belle-Isle and Field of Tulips in Holland also by Monet, Bather Sitting on a Rock and Portrait of Monet by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
, Young Woman at the Ball by Berthe Morisot
, and Portrait of Monet by Sei-ichi Naruse and were valued at $12 million.
A tip-off led to the arrest in Japan
of a Yakuza
gangster named Shuinichi Fujikuma who spent time in French prison for trafficking heroin and was sentenced for five years. There he met, Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun who were part of an art syndicate. Fujikuma, Jamin and Khimoun were the people who planned the Marmottan heist. In his house, police found a catalog with all the stolen paintings from museum encircled. Also found were two paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
stolen in 1984 from a local museum in France. This led to the recovery of the stolen paintings in a small villa in Corsica
in December 1990.
XVIe arrondissement
The 16th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France...
of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. It features a collection of over three hundred Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and Post-Impressionist
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
works by Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
(with the largest collection of his works in the world), Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.In 1864, she exhibited for the first...
, Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...
, Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
, Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, Paul Signac
Paul Signac
Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...
and Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
. In addition it houses the Wildenstein Collection
Daniel Wildenstein
Daniel Leopold Wildenstein was a French art dealer and scholar, as well as a leading thoroughbred race horse owner and breeder....
of illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s and the Jules and Paul Marmottan collection of Napoleonic era art and furniture as well as Italian and Flemish primitive paintings.
The nearest métro station is La Muette
La Muette (Paris Metro)
La Muette is a station on line 9 of the Paris Métro, in France, named after the Chaussée de la Muette, a nearby street. The station opened on 8 November 1922 with the opening of the first section of the line from Trocadéro to Exelmans....
.
History
Originally a hunting lodge for the Duke of Valmy, the house at the edge of the Bois de BoulogneBois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne is a park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine...
was purchased by Jules Marmottan in 1882 who later left it to his son Paul Marmottan. Marmottan moved into the lodge and, with an interest in the Napoleonic era, he expanded his father's collection of paintings, furniture and bronzes. Marmottan bequeathed his home and collection to the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
. The Académie opened up the house and collection as the Museum Marmottan in 1934.
Though originally a showcase for pieces from the First Empire
First French Empire
The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...
, the nature of the museum's collection began to change with two major donations. In 1957, Victorine Donop de Monchy gave the museum an important collection of Impressionist works that had belonged to her father, Doctor Georges de Bellio, physician to Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Sisley and Renoir, and an early supporter of the Impressionist movement. In 1966, Claude Monet's second son, Michel Monet, left the museum his own collection of his father's work, thus creating the world's largest collection of Monet paintings.
Jacque Carlu, then curator of the museum, built a special exhibition space for the Monet collection in a lower level of the museum. Inspired by the hall designed for Monet's Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet . The paintings depict Monet's flower garden at Giverny and were the main focus of Monet's artistic production during the last thirty years of his life...
murals in the Musée de l'Orangerie
Musée de l'Orangerie
The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Though most famous for being the permanent home for eight Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet, the museum also contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse,...
, the large, open room allows visitors to see a progression of Monet's work, as well as to view his canvases both up close and from afar. One of the most notable pieces in the museum is Monet's Impression, Sunrise
Impression, Sunrise
Impression, Sunrise is a painting by Claude Monet. It gave rise to the name of the Impressionist movement.-History:...
(Impression, Soleil Levant), the painting from which the Impressionist movement took its name. The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan in 1985, but recovered five years later and returned to the permanent exhibit in 1991.
1985 theft
On 28 October 1985, during daylight hours, five masked gunmen with pistolPistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
s at the security and visitors entered the museum and stole nine paintings from the collection. Among them were Impression, Sunrise
Impression, Sunrise
Impression, Sunrise is a painting by Claude Monet. It gave rise to the name of the Impressionist movement.-History:...
(Impression, Soleil Levant) by Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, the painting from which the Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
movement took its name. Aside from that also stolen were Camille Monet and Cousin on the Beach at Trouville, Portrait of Jean Monet, Portrait of Poly, Fisherman of Belle-Isle and Field of Tulips in Holland also by Monet, Bather Sitting on a Rock and Portrait of Monet by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, Young Woman at the Ball by Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.In 1864, she exhibited for the first...
, and Portrait of Monet by Sei-ichi Naruse and were valued at $12 million.
A tip-off led to the arrest in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
of a Yakuza
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...
gangster named Shuinichi Fujikuma who spent time in French prison for trafficking heroin and was sentenced for five years. There he met, Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun who were part of an art syndicate. Fujikuma, Jamin and Khimoun were the people who planned the Marmottan heist. In his house, police found a catalog with all the stolen paintings from museum encircled. Also found were two paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century...
stolen in 1984 from a local museum in France. This led to the recovery of the stolen paintings in a small villa in Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
in December 1990.