The Impressionist House of Claude Monet, Argenteuil

The pink house with green shutters in Argenteuil, on the banks of the Seine, was home to Claude Monet and his family in the 1870s. Renovated and fitted out to welcome the public around the theme of Impressionism, it offers visitors an immersive and fun visitor experience, combining old furniture with digital tools that bring to life the paintings of the foremost Impressionist artist.

On the trail of Monet in Argenteuil

The visitor trail, laid out like a treasure hunt, takes visitors through the entire house and invites them to open cupboards, drawers and shutters, until they reach the recently revamped garden. Enlivened by narrative films and reproductions of many of Monet’s paintings, the trail enables visitors to learn about Monet’s life in Argenteuil in this house, the architecture of which is typical of a 19th-century “holiday home”, which took the Swiss chalet as its model.

The grand finale of the experience, a reconstruction of Monet’s boat-studio enables visitors to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of a floating studio and thus to see, touch, smell and feel Impressionism.

A very fertile artistic period

In terms of pictorial output, Monet’s Argenteuil period was particularly fertile. He painted 259 pictures there, including over 150 for which Argenteuil and its surroundings were the subject matter. Town or country, nature or industry: every theme was captured by Monet in these paintings, which were exhibited most notably in Paris, at the Musée d’Orsay (The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil and Regatta at Argenteuil) and the Marmottan Monet Museum (Taking a Walk near Argenteuil).
Be sure to linger for a little while in the winter garden, at the start of the visit, which has been fully reconstructed from Monet’s paintings and which provides an unrestricted view of the main garden. The main garden is revealed at the end of the visit. It has been replanted with the floral species of the era, once again faithful to Monet’s paintings and drawings. The garden used to serve as a studio for the Impressionists, including, apart from the master of the house, Édouard Manet, who came to set up his easel here.

The cradle of Impressionism, Paris and its region invite you on a real journey, walking in the footsteps of the painters of light.