By the time Claude Monet arrived at the house in Giverny in 1883, the Impressionist movement was barely a decade old. At the heart of the sprawling property – with the verdant Clos Normand flower garden on one corner and a Japanese garden, complete with a bridge and his beloved water lilies, on the other – is the home, painted cherry pink as if it’s about to burst like ripe summer fruit.

As with the era-defining artistic movement he originated with his radical workImpression, Sunrise, the kitchen and dining room of Monet’s home are washed with colour and light.The green-trimmed windows were thrown open to let light dance across the yellow dining room. It's there, around the farmhouse table, that the painter and his wife, Alice Hoschedé, welcomed friends to join them and their eight children for meals.

Guests like Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Paul Cézanne would settle in for Monet's favourite dishes: a peppery salad, a gurgling fish soup, crisp and dense potato pie, asparagus blanched in one of his many copper pots until it was exactly how he liked it (slightly underdone, still crisp). And rich, treacly tarte tatin for dessert.Through connecting doors is the kitchen, trimmed in bright blue Rouen tiles that summon the sky on every wall and surface. His collection of copper catches and refracts the light, and includes an eclectic jumble of pieces both functional and decorate. Like his brushstrokes, every piece of décor has a place and serves a purpose.

It's here in the kitchen that the painter imported Périgord truffles and foie gras from Alsace, poured glasses of Sancerre and plucked the leaves from the mint and rosemary that sprung up in the garden. And it’s here where the food that so inspired Monet's works – the loaf of bread balancing precariously on the edge of the table inThe Luncheon, a side of meat sliced and waiting patiently for its final resting place inStill Life – Quarter of Beef, hungry picnickers laying out platters of pâté en croûte and roast chicken inLe Déjeuner sur l’Herbe– was lovingly prepared for 40 years, until his death in 1926. It would be another 54 years before the doors to his restored home were opened to visitors again, the smell of his lemon Madeleines and coq au vin long evaporated.

Words by Brodie Lancaster @brodielancaster