Contents

11 Origins and Birth 11 The Move to Le Havre 13 The Schoolboy 16 Ochard’s Student – Early Efforts 19 His Mother’s Death 22 Caricatures 19 Meeting Boudin 24 Grant Applications 25 Paris 28 Thomas Couture 29 The Académie Suisse 31 From Delacroix to Daubigny 34 The Brasserie des Martyrs 38 The Impasse 40 Conscription 42 Algeria 45 The Meeting with Jongkind 48 Exoneration 49 Toulmouche 53 Charles Gleyre and his Academy 54 Life in the Studio 58 Chailly-en-Bière 60 The Demise of the Academy 61 Honfleur 68 The Rue de Furstenberg and the First Salon 70 The Luncheon on the Grass 73 Camille 78 Women in the Garden 82 The Birth of Jean 84 A Return to his Roots 87 A Low Point 89 Madame Gaudibert 94 Dream and Awakening 96 La Grenouillère 98 Marriage 100 Trouville and the War 105 London 227 From Euphoria to Despair 108 Zaandam 229 Provisional Reckonings and a Further Trip 111 Rue de l’Isly 230 The Hôtel Blanquet at Étretat 116 Early Days in Argenteuil and the Trip to Rouen 235 “The Fiasco of My Exhibition” 119 The Port of Argenteuil 236 Somewhere Permanent to Live 121 Income 238 124 The Doncieux Inheritance 241 Bordighera 128 Tomorrow’s Men 244 Monsieur Moreno, “A Veritable Marquis de Carabas” 133 Impression 248 Bordighera to Menton 138 Making the Best of Hard Times 252 New Difficulties 141 Great Encounters 254 Octave Mirbeau 145 The Hôtel Drouot 257 From the Lathuille Banquet to the International Exhibition 148 Misfortune in the Rue Le Peletier 259 The Life of a Landscape Artist 151 Ernest Hoschedé 264 The Manneporte 155 From Parc Monceau to the Château de Rottembourg 267 “Yesterday’s Monet Is Dead” 159 The Gare Saint-Lazare 273 Zola’s L’Œuvre 161 Leaving Argenteuil 276 Young Woman with a Parasol 164 L’Île de la Grande Jatte 280 Belle-Île, Russell and Poly 167 The Exposition Universelle 286 “Once I get started, nothing stops me” 169 The Last Hoschedé Sale 295 Gustave Geffroy 172 Vétheuil: Another New Start 296 The Château de la Pinède 174 Settling in 301 The Whole Gang 176 As Quick to Hope as to Despair 305 Theo van Gogh’s Mezzanine and the Giverny Studio 180 The Baritone Scapegoat 307 Anecdote versus Fact 181 The Death of Camille 310 The First Grainstacks 185 Merciless People, Merciless Winter 312 Chez Maurice Rollinat 189 Poverty and Hope 316 “If Flaubert had been a Painter” 191 Icebreak and Renewal 319 “For ever Monet! For ever Rodin!” 193 The Gaulois Affair 324 Homage to the Memory of Edouard Manet 197 “I am working furiously” 326 Monet as a Teacher 199 Lavacourt at the Salon 329 Antonin Proust under Fire 203 La Vie Moderne 333 Gustave Larroumet Besieged 206 Flourishing 339 “Don’t make a martyr of yourself by desiring the impossible” 211 The Return of Durand-Ruel 344 Such a Beautiful Landscape 214 Conflicts 349 Variations on a Theme: the Grainstacks 216 Leaving Vétheuil 352 Requiem for a Man of Letters 218 Poissy and the Collapse of the Union Générale Bank 335 From the Grainstacks to the 220 At “La Renommée des Galettes” 360 The Blue, Pink or Yellow Cathedral 222 From the Reichshoffen Panorama to the Pourville Seascapes 363 The Marriages 224 “Will you like what I am bringing back?” 365 The Hôtel de Ville Affair 371 A Pond to Make, A Cathedral to Paint 508 The Flood of 1910 374 The New World, The Old World 509 The Death of Alice 378 Legacies, Sales and Added Value 513 “I am completely fed up with painting …” 381 Camondo, Signac and Cézanne 515 Onset of the Cataract 384 Sandviken near Christiania 518 “I feel I am undertaking something very important” 388 As if in Japan 523 A Studio Constructed in the Midst of War 393 “Cathedral Revolution” 526 The Grand Decorations before All Else 395 Returns and Repetitions 530 A Triumph in Two Panels 399 “So all of them are Manets, all Monets, all Pissarros” 534 The Law of Silence 402 The Henri Vever Sale 536 The Donation Made Public 404 Léon Gérôme 539 From the Hôtel Biron to the Orangerie 406 Maurice Guillemot, an Inspired Reporter 544 The Donation is Formalised 410 Zola’s Admirable Courage 545 Preparing for the Cataract Operation 413 Boredom or New Start 549 An Operation in Three Stages 417 “The Paganini of the Rainbow” 553 The Patience of Dr Coutela 420 “So much pain and heartache” 556 The “Patriarch of Art” 425 A “Complete and Unanimous” Success 560 “As if he had all eternity before him” 425 Apotheosis or Decline? 564 From Charles Coutela to Jacques Mawas 428 The First Series of Japanese Bridges 566 The Donation under Threat 432 The First London Bridge Pictures 570 The Swan Song 435 The Dawn of the 20th Century 573 “Nothing to be done” 439 “I Am a Complete Imbecile” 578 “Monet … may still get back in the saddle” 445 London Society 581 “A disease which cannot be cured” 449 The Centennial Exhibition 585 The Last Remission 451 The Water-Lily Pond 587 A Gentle Death 452 “This is not a country where you can finish a picture” 593 The Funeral 457 The Meadow 599 Epilogue 458 Farewell to Vétheuil 462 Towards a Subjective 602 Index of Proper Names 467 “Study and research, which will prove fruitful” 612 Acknowledgements 471 Enthusiasm to Order or Spontaneous Admiration? 474 “Gardening and painting apart, I’m no good at anything” 478 London: The Entente Cordiale 483 Louis Vauxcelles at Giverny 487 A Pond of Light 488 Delicate Comparisons and a Well-Orchestrated Campaign 493 Social Progress? 495 An Autumn in Venice 502 The Water-Lilies Exhibition in 1909 503 From Decoration to Abstraction