Frederick MacMonnies is best known today as one of the leading figurative sculptors of the American Renaissance. Residing in France for much of his professional career, MacMonnies, along with his first wife, the painter Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, often visited Giverny, home to the reclusive Claude Monet and numerous American Impressionists in the final decade of the nineteenth century. By 1894 the town was the MacMonnies's favorite summer retreat, and in 1898 they moved permanently into an old priory in Giverny, dubbed the "MacMonastery" by friends.

It was at this time, just as the new century dawned, that MacMonnies launched his career as a painter. Although he continued to produce sculpture, the artist happily painted portraits and occasionally submitted paintings to the annual salons for nearly a decade. Mary MacMonnies also continued to pursue her artistic career from their remote enclave outside Paris. This catalogue, which accompanied two exhibitions, "An Interlude in Giverny: The French Chevalier by Frederick MacMonnies" and "An Interlude in Giverny: Dans la nursery by Mary MacMonnies Low," explores the artistic and personal milieus surrounding the creation of two masterworks by the MacMonnieses during this Giverny interlude.