Claude Monet noticed the village of Giverny while looking out of a train window. He made up his mind to move there and rented a house and the area surrounding it. In 1890 he had enough money to buy the house and land outright and set out to create the magnificent gardens he wanted to paint. Some of his most famous paintings were of his garden in Giverny, famous for its rectangular Clos normand, with archways of climbing plants entwined around colored shrubs, and the water garden, formed by a tributary to the Epte, with the Japanese bridge, the pond with the water lily, the wisterias and the azaleas. Monet lived in the house with its famous pink crushed brick façade from 1883 until his death in 1926. He and many members of his family are interred in the village cemetery.
Claude Monet lived for forty-three years, from 1883 to 1926, in his house in Giverny. With a passion for gardening as well as for colours, he conceived both his flower garden and water garden as true works of art. Walking through his house and gardens, visitors can still feel the atmosphere which reigned at the home of the Master of Impressionnism and marvel at the floral compositions and nymphéas, his greatest sources of inspiration.
Claude Monet’s property at Giverny (house and gardens), left by his son to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1966 became a Museum opened to public visit in 1980 after completion of large-scale restoration work: the huge Nymphea’s studio was restored and the precious collection of Japanese engravings was displayed in several rooms, hung in the manner chosen by the master himself; the gardens were replanted as they once were. The house become a popular tourist attraction (the Claude Monet Foundation), particularly in the summer when the flowers are in bloom.
Un gatto di nome Giando 