The people who encouraged the young Claude Monet

Claude Monet’s father wanted his son to join the family business, while Monet wanted to become an artist. After his mother’s death, his aunt Marie-Jeanne Lecadre supported his artistic plans; painter Eugène Boudin encouraged Monet to paint outdoors, and Jongkind became an important influence. In 1859, Monet went to Paris. The story of a categorical paternal ban followed by a dramatic “letting him go” should not be treated as a precise scene: sources support his aunt’s encouragement and his father’s initial preference for a business career, but summarize the details of consent differently.