A Pilgrimage to Monet's Giverny and a Fox Encounter at Duchamp's Grave

In a personal travelogue for the column 'Il Sole allo Zenit', the author recounts a summer trip to Giverny, the village where Claude Monet spent his final 43 years. The visit includes Monet's house and water garden, featuring the Japanese bridge, flowers, and water lilies that inspired his paintings. The author also visits the Ancien Hotel Baudy, a former gathering place for Impressionists like Renoir, Rodin, and Mary Cassatt, where Cézanne painted in November 1884. Continuing the Monet trail, the author sees the old mill of Vernon, a subject of Monet's work, and the Rouen Cathedral, which Monet painted over thirty times between 1892 and 1894. The series was first exhibited by art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in Paris, and individual paintings are now in major museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Getty Museum, as well as private collections such as the Fondation Elise et Basil Goulandris in Greece. One version sold at Sotheby's in 2014 for nearly $4 million. The author also visits the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen to see a version donated by coal industrialist and patron François Depeaux in 1909, along with 52 other works. The journey continues to Étretat, Trouville, Fécamp, and Honfleur, sites Monet painted. Finally, in Rouen, the author visits the grave of Marcel Duchamp, where a fox unexpectedly appears, leading to a whimsical reflection on Duchamp's possible reincarnation.