Monet, Renoir, Corot, Daubigny, Géricault, Courbet, Bonnard, Morisot, Jongkind, Boudin…

The exhibition Impressionist Treasures: Monet and Normandy—organized at the Royal Palace of Palermo by the Federico II Foundation, under the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Embassy of France in Italy, and the French Institute—explores the Impressionist movement from its very beginnings. It presents a selection of masterpieces from the Peindre en Normandie Collection, shown in Sicily for the first time and among the most representative of the period, alongside works from the MuMa in Le Havre and from private collectors. These works enter into dialogue with a site that is a symbol of Norman history in the Mediterranean.

A journey that recounts exchanges, encounters, influences, affinities, and collaborations among the greatest artists of the nineteenth century who contributed to the renown of the Normandy region.

Painters such as Monet were able to capture the fleeting nature of the landscape, imprinting on canvas the shimmer of water and the moods of the sky, the lush valleys of Normandy—the cradle of the artistic and pictorial movement.

The 97 works reveal to the world the aesthetic power of a land that inspired the greatest artists of the nineteenth century. Monet, Boudin, Bonnard, Dufy, and many others captured the changing light, the coasts, and the countryside of Normandy, transforming them into universal images, now brought together in a major collection.

In the Duca di Montalto Rooms, paintings by 45 artists enchant visitors: works by Claude Monet and his mentor and friend Eugène Boudin; Théodore Géricault; Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot; Adolphe-Félix Cals—still little known but regarded by critics as a true forerunner of Impressionism; Gustave Courbet; Eugène Delacroix; Jacques Villon; Pierre-Auguste Renoir; and Berthe Morisot, the only woman featured in the exhibition.