2026Claude Monet 1840-1926 - Set

On November 9, 2026, La Poste will issue a stamp featuring Claude Monet to mark the centenary of his passing. One hundred years after his death on December 5, 1926, Monet is no longer viewed solely as the "master of Impressionism." Indeed, no one today would think to describe his final series, the *Water Lilies* (*Nymphéas*) on display at the Musée de l’Orangerie as the "Sistine Chapel of Impressionism," a term coined by André Masson in 1952. It is true that the group of painters who exhibited together in the studio of the photographer Nadar in 1874 adopted the label "Impressionist" a term originally used ironically by the critic Louis Leroy and derived from the title *Impression, Sunrise* (*Impression, soleil levant*; Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet Académie des Beaux-Arts) to designate a movement that never possessed a written doctrine or a closed circle of devoted followers.