Monet was not only a legendary painter, but an accomplished gardener, gourmand, and family man who took infinite care to design domestic spaces that were as luminously beautiful as his canvases. These ten images provide intimate glimpses of his wife and children in their homes and gardens: the nursery of his newborn son, an outdoor table set for tea, a garden of gladioli. Pictured, too, are his first wife swathed in a gown of delicate pink, reading under a tree in dappled sunlight, and his stepdaughters, at easels in an orchard filled with blossoming trees, or in a rowboat drifting through the famous green and lavender lily pond.

From the introduction
Claude Monet was not only a legendary artist but an exuberant family man, from his twenties on, the head of a large, loving, and unconventional household. As was the custom of artists living la vie Boheme in Paris in the 1880s, Monet took up with his favorite model, Camille, who he eventually married and who continued to figure prominently in the tender paintings he made of his early domestic life. Often too poor to rent a studio or buy paint, Monet in 1876 accepted a commission from a wealthy Parisian businessman, Ernest Hoschede, to live and paint at his luxurious estate. During that time, Monet became close to the family; not long after, in a stunning reversal, his patron lost his fortune and the penniless family of eight moved in with the struggling Monet, Camille, and their two young sons. Within several years, Camille died, Hochede abandoned his family, and Alice and Claude found themselves at the head of a household of eight children, withdrawing from public life because of their awkward domestic situation. After Ernest’s death, they quietly married. Throughout, Monet somehow forged a serene family life, anchored first by Camille, and throughout the remaining decades of his life, by his two sons, Alice, and her six children.

20 notecards with envelopes
in a keepsake box, 2 of each of 10 images. Also available as a postcard book of 20 detachable
postcards, 2 each of 10 images.

ISBN 10: 1-932411-00-3
ISBN 13: 9781932411058

Boxed Notecards 6” x 4.5”
Retail price: $16.95
Price: $13.56 (20% off)

Postcard Book 6” x 4”
Retail price: $9.95
Price: $7.96 (20% off)