Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Fournaise house, built in 1844 in Chatou on the island of Impressionists, was originally a gargot and a shipyard. In 1857, Alphonse Fournaise, master of the bridge, acquired it to open a restaurant and a boat rental, transforming Chatou into a popular canoeing station. The successive enlargements and the addition of a cast iron balustrade make it a fashionable place, frequented by all-Paris. Under his direction, the establishment becomes a "shoal boater's phanaster", where it spanks for a few sous, appealing artists and bourgeois in search of fluvial leisure.

At the turn of the 1880s, the Fournaise House welcomed Impressionists, including Auguste Renoir, who painted Le Déjeuner des Canoeiers (1880) and Les Deux Sœurs (1881). Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Gustave Caillebotte also co-host local artists such as Maurice Réalier-Dumas, who participates in the decoration of the places. The establishment, described by Maupassant in La Femme de Paul as the "Restaurant Grillon", embodies the artistic and worldly effervescence of the banks of the Seine. Its closure at the beginning of the 20th century marked the decline of the site, saved in extremis by the commune of Chatou in 1979.

The Fournaise House was listed as an inventory of historical monuments in 1982 and is restored with public and community funding (including the Friends of the Fournaise House and Friends of French Art). In 1990 it reopened as a restaurant, while the museum, inaugurated in 1992, exhibited works by André Derain, Albert Lebourg, or Adrien Karbowsky, as well as ceramics and souvenirs from the golden age of canoeing. The main hall, with its murals, has been protected as historical monuments since 2025. The museum also maintains a Renoir sculpture and digitized archives on the Mona Lisa base.

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