Alice Hoschedé, Monet's companion at Giverny

Angélique Émilie Alice Raingo was born in Paris on February 19, 1844, the daughter of Jeanne Coralie Boulade and Alphonse Raingo. She first married an enlightened bourgeois, Ernest Hoschedé. A textile merchant, he was also a patron of the arts and a friend of Claude Monet. In 1876 he commissioned Monet to paint panels for a drawing room at his Château de Rottembourg in Montgeron, near Paris. But her husband's finances deteriorated, and he went bankrupt a year later, in 1877.

In the summer of 1878, Alice and her six children moved to Vétheuil, where they joined Claude Monet and his first wife, Camille Doncieux.
 

The romance that bound the painter and the woman who was his model, and would become his wife, most likely began around 1875. Other historians and biographers place it rather in the summer of 1876. Whatever the case, after the death of Camille Doncieux in 1879, Alice Hoschedé and Claude Monet continued to live together. They stayed for a time at Poissy before settling for good at Giverny in 1883.

The household was large. Alongside Alice and Claude lived Camille's two children and Alice's six children:

• Michel Monet
• Jean Monet
• Jacques
• Blanche
• Germaine
• Suzanne
• Marthe
• Jean-Pierre

Their union was made official a few years later, in 1892. Though their relationship was at times complicated, for it was not easy to find one's place beside a man so consumed by painting, Alice remained with Monet until her death. Even when traveling, the painter stayed close to his companion through a rich correspondence, as the letters from his journey to Norway, written while he was already living at Giverny, attest. She died in 1911, taken by leukemia.

• Born Angélique Émilie Alice Raingo in Paris on February 19, 1844.
• First married Ernest Hoschedé, textile merchant and patron of Monet.
• Settled at Giverny with Monet in 1883; married him in 1892.
• Died in 1911.