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50 free Claude Monet trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Claude Monet trivia quiz follows the founder of Impressionism from a Paris birth and a Le Havre childhood, through the caricatures he sold at 15, the mentor Eugène Boudin who took him outdoors, the army years in Algeria and the studio of Charles Gleyre where he met Renoir. It covers the Salon rejections, Camille Doncieux, exile in London during the Franco-Prussian War, the meeting with dealer Paul Durand-Ruel and the floating studio at Argenteuil. The middle of the quiz is about the movement itself: the 1874 exhibition, the hostile critic who coined 'Impressionism' from Impression, Sunrise, the price the painting failed to fetch, the Gare Saint-Lazare canvases and the death of Camille. From there it moves to Giverny, the gardens and the seven gardeners, the haystacks, poplars and Rouen Cathedral series, the Savoy Hotel views of the Thames, Venice, the cataracts he was too frightened to have removed, Clemenceau's 'No black for Monet!', and the water lilies that fill the Orangerie. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Pablo Picasso and Renaissance Art quizzes next.
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Q 01Monet was born in 1840 in which city, before the family moved to Le Havre?
Paris
He was born on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte and baptised Oscar-Claude; his parents called him Oscar.
Q 02What did Monet's father want him to go into instead of art?
The family grocery business
His mother, a singer, backed his ambitions; she died in 1857 when he was sixteen.
Q 03How did the teenage Monet first earn money from art?
Drawing caricatures of acquaintances
He started at 15 and had saved around 2,000 francs from his drawings by the time he reached Paris.
Q 04Which painter, met around 1858, taught Monet to paint outdoors and was called by him 'my master'?
Eugène Boudin
Monet said he owed him everything; the Dutch painter Jongkind became a second mentor in 1862.
Q 05Monet's widowed, wealthy aunt, who supported his early career, was named what?
Marie-Jeanne Lecadre
She later paid 3,025 francs to buy him out of the army after he caught typhoid.
Q 06Conscripted in 1861, Monet enlisted for seven years with which unit?
The 1st Chasseurs d'Afrique
Army records give him as 165 cm with brown hair and chestnut eyes; he had never ridden a horse.
Q 07Where did Monet serve in the army in 1861-62, later saying its light 'contained the gem of my future researches'?
Algeria
Typhoid fever sent him home; his aunt then bought his discharge.
Q 08In whose Paris studio did Monet meet Renoir and Frédéric Bazille in 1862?
Charles Gleyre's
He left after disagreeing about how to present nature; Bazille became his closest friend.
Q 09Monet's Salon submissions between 1865 and 1870 were accepted by the jury how many times?
Twice
He debuted successfully in 1865, was accepted again in 1866 and 1868, then stayed away until a single last attempt in 1880.
Q 10Camille Doncieux, mother of Monet's son Jean, first entered his life in what role?
As a model for his paintings
His father cut off his money over the relationship; they married in June 1870.
Q 11Why did Monet and his family live in London and the Netherlands in 1870-71?
To avoid conscription in the Franco-Prussian War
In London he met Whistler and the dealer who would carry his career, and admired Turner's fog-bound Thames.
Q 12Which dealer, met in London in 1870-71, became Monet's first and primary art dealer?
Paul Durand-Ruel
His American sales later gave Monet financial security, though Monet grumbled the dealer cared only about the United States.
Q 13At Argenteuil in the 1870s, what did Monet acquire to paint on the Seine?
A sailboat
Q 21Alice Hoschedé, Monet's second wife, was previously married to what kind of businessman?
A department store owner
Ernest Hoschedé commissioned four paintings, shared a house with the Monets at Vétheuil, then went bankrupt; Alice married Monet in 1892.
Q 22In which year did Monet move into the rented house at Giverny that became the family home?
1883
He bought it in 1890; two days after arriving he learned Manet had died and had to borrow money for the train fare to the funeral.
Q 23Monet was a pallbearer at the 1883 funeral of which fellow painter?
Édouard Manet
He had no money for the fare or mourning clothes and petitioned Durand-Ruel for it; Zola was another pallbearer.
He spent five years there, much of it in a little floating studio, thinking in colours and shapes rather than scenes.
Q 14Which chemist's colour theories interested Monet at Argenteuil?
Michel Eugène Chevreul
His ideas on the juxtaposition of colours fed directly into Impressionist technique.
Q 15Under what name did Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas and others exhibit independently in 1874?
The Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers
The name was chosen to avoid association with any style; the group were united only in rejecting the Salon.
Q 16Which critic coined the term 'Impressionism' in a hostile review of the 1874 exhibition?
Louis Leroy
He meant it ironically, as 'unfinished'; he later regretted inspiring the name.
Q 17Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of which town?
Le Havre
It was a hazy 'stylistic detour', priced at 1,000 francs and unsold at the 1874 show.
Q 18How many francs did Monet ask for Impression, Sunrise at the 1874 exhibition, without finding a buyer?
1,000
Attendance was about 3,500; anyone willing to pay 60 francs could exhibit, with no jury.
Q 19For the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877, Monet showed seven paintings of which Paris location?
Gare Saint-Lazare
He had painted a dozen views of the station in three months, studying how smoke and steam changed colour and visibility.
Q 20Camille Monet died in 1879 of what?
Uterine cancer
Monet painted a study of her dead face, later confessing he found himself 'systematically noting the colours according to an automatic reflex'.
Q 24Monet's 1884 trip to Bordighera, where he painted 38 canvases, was to which country?
Italy
He asked Durand-Ruel not to tell Renoir he was going alone; the palm trees, he complained, were 'exasperating'.
Q 25How many gardeners did Monet eventually employ at Giverny while remaining the garden's architect?
Seven
He wrote daily instructions, precise planting layouts, and kept a library of botany books.
Q 26Monet's water lilies included cultivars imported from South America and which other place?
Egypt
Alongside native white lilies they gave him yellows, blues and whites that turned pink with age.
Q 27Which subject formed Monet's first exhibited series, shown at Durand-Ruel's gallery in 1891?
Haystacks
Fifteen were shown; twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral followed in 1892.
Q 28How many paintings of Rouen Cathedral did Monet exhibit in 1895?
20
They focus on the play of light across the façade rather than the building itself; he experimented with making his own frames.
Q 29Switching canvases as the light changed, Monet sometimes juggled how many at once?
Eight
He usually spent about an hour on each before moving on.
Q 30From which London hotel did Monet paint the Thames on his stays from 1899 to 1901?
The Savoy
'Without the fog London wouldn't be a beautiful city,' he said; he painted Waterloo Bridge at sunrise and Charing Cross Bridge in the afternoon.