Espace Monet-Rollinat
Where Monet painted twenty-three canvases in three months
A contemporary art centre in Fresselines, on the very spot. Monet came here in 1889, to stay with the poet Maurice Rollinat, and left with twenty-three canvases.
It should be said from the outset: there is no original Monet to see here. This is an art centre of about nine hundred square metres, devoted to contemporary creation, with one room telling the story of the 1889 stay. The Monets are elsewhere. The landscape, though, is right outside.
The story is worth the detour. In February 1889, the critic Gustave Geffroy brought Monet to Rollinat's house. Monet came back alone ten days later and stayed until 18 May. He painted the confluence of the Creuse and the Petite Creuse, the old oak tree, the Vervy mill. Fourteen canvases in under a fortnight.
Spring arrived and the oak turned green again, which ruined his winter series. Monet offered the owner fifty francs to have the new shoots torn out. On 21 June, the canvases were hung in Paris, at the Galerie Georges Petit, in the exhibition he shared with Rodin.
Open from late March to mid-November. Opening times vary between sources: better to call ahead.