Erik Desmazières, Director of the Musée Marmottan-Monet

The Musée Marmottan Monet is celebrating its 90th anniversary. Is it still the same museum as when it was founded? No, it looks completely different now, and has a very different purpose as well, which is very unusual in in the museum world. The two generations of founders, Jules and Paul Marmottan, were prominent landowners. The father collected medieval and early 16th-century art, and the son was a leading specialist in the Empire . In founding a museum with his 1932 bequest, he wanted to present an era by recreating an Empire décor and atmosphere in a typical 19th-century residence. Meanwhile, the Marmottan Library in Boulogne-Billancourt was his country house. Although Julie Manet's signature appears in the inaugural visitors' book, nothing suggested that this museum would become a key venue for Impressionism . Victorine Donop de Monchy's donation in 1940 changed all that. A loyal visitor to the Ranelagh gardens from childhood, she gifted eleven Impressionist paintings by Monet, Sisley, Guillaumin, Renoir and Morisot , which had been hidden from the dangers of war in the museum. Does…