Everything has already been said about Claude Monet - almost. But there’s another Monet in the history of Impressionism - Léon, brother of the painter and also a big art enthusiast. Without Léon, perhaps Claude wouldn’t have gotten as far. In 1872, while Claude painted the scandalous Impression. Soleil Levant, Léon founded the Societé Industrielle of Rouen and decided to support his brother and his fellow impressionist friends. A businessman and a chemist of colours, gifted with a “lively intelligence” and a “frank and cordial character”, the forgotten Monet also became a formidable collector - with his friend François Depeaux, he gathered a collection of modern art worthy of a museum. An enthusiastic patron, he was close to artists like Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. After two centuries of anonymity, his story is revealed at the Musée du Luxembourg - on display are around 100 paintings and drawings belonging to Léon, next to recipes for the preparation of revolutionary synthetic colours, samples of fabrics and numerous vintage photos to get to know the Monet family up close. The exhibition also offers two never-before-seen pieces - the first sketchbook of Claude, dated 1856, and the Portrait of Léon carried out by the artist in 1874, the year before the exhibition of the Impressionists in Paris.
