TheMuseum Mar­mottan Monet, situated in the posh environs of Paris and close to Bois de Boulogne, is known for its great collection of Impressionist works that include the famous Claude Monet painting ‘Impression, rising sun’ which gave its name to the movement.

Currently the Museum Marmottan Monet is having an unusual exhibition that has made a number of legendary artistic creations leave their permanent home in Switzerland for the first time in order to be displayed in Paris.

Some 80 works being shown here until the first week of February 2016 include masterpieces by Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Giovanni Giacometti, Vincent van Gogh, Ferdinand Hodler, Aristide Maillol, Henri Manguin, Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, August Rodin, Georges Rouault, Xavier Roussel, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edouard Vuillard and Frederich Weild … to name only a few.

The Museum Marmottan Monet presents the impressive private collection of the Swiss couple

However, to really grasp the fabulous dimensions of this show let us go for a short while into the history of the enchanted residence that was, and still is, a shelter for the marvellous and relatively lesser known works of the above-named painters.

Villa Flora was built in Winterthur, not far from Zurich, in 1846 at the orders of a rich businessman initially as a luxurious family home with a vast garden and numerous summer and winter porticos. Its artistic saga, however, began in 1906 when a Swiss eye surgeon named Arthur Hahnloser and his wife Hedy acquired the house and settled down there with their two children.

For the next three decades Arthur and Hedy would not only buy works by contemporary artists, especially those belonging to the post-Impressionist movement, but a number of them such as Marquet, Vallotton, Vuillard, Manguin and Giocometti would often be their guests and paint their masterpieces in the garden of Villa Flora.

The success of the post-Impressionist movement led by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Renoir would owe a great deal to the encouragement by the Hahnloser couple who not only bought their paintings but equally encouraged them, and often supported them financially, to present their works in various art exhibitions throughout Europe.

Visiting the Marmottan show is a surprise in more than one way. Many regular museum enthusiasts, familiar with what they believe are the known styles of famous painters, discover with astonishment newer aspects that they had been unaware of before.

Giacometti, for example, was always easily recognisable by his harsh, often cruelly executed self-portraits or by his thin and shadowy sculptures. What a joy it is to see his pleasant and colourful paintings using a magical play of light and shade under the Villa Flora trees.

Bonnard, normally known for his rather slurry landscapes, has painted the Hahnloser children getting off the boat at the Bay of Cannes and playing on the beach with many other landscapes in the background. This is another surprise!

Then you have ‘Afternoon nap’ and ‘Tea in the Garden’ by Henri Manguin, the ‘Portrait of Hanloser Children’ by Felix Volloton, or the ‘Port of St Tropez’ by Albert Marquet that take your breath away.

No other words can more aptly describe the artistic soul of Villa Flora than a remark made by Hedy Hahnloser in a letter to a friend in 1940, a few years after her husband Arthur’s death in 1936, “We got in touch with these wonderful artists not because they were already famous but on a number of occasions many of their works were created following our encounters with them. This alone created a feeling that went well above all materialist considerations. Belonging to this close circle of friends has remained the most valuable treasure of our lives.”

When Hedy Hahnloser herself died in 1952, her descendants considered it too selfish to move into Villa Flora and took measures to transform it into a Swiss national museum.

The writer is a journalist based in Paris: ZafMasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine December 27th, 2015