Léon Monet was the enabling sibling Claude needed.
The artist once said, “Never, even as a child, would I bend to a rule.” Lacking compromise for art, he refused to join the family business. In Paris, Claude often left his sick wife alone all day to paint outside and attempted suicide due to financial and art world worries. With Claude’s troubles in art came blessings, thanks to his brother.
At an early Impressionist auction in 1875, Léon Monet bought his work, and that of fellow artists, spiking Claude’s prices when he had little clientele (or money and food). Claude needed to benefit from such “principles of popularity” at a time when the art world rejected Impressionism; Leon’s attention helped buoy the starving artist’s reputation into, what would be, lasting cultural affection.
