Focus on Portrait of Père Paul and explain the Portrait of a host.
Monet arrived at Pourville on 15 February 1882 and painted the landscape of the Normandy coast during the subsequent couple of months. He lived there at the Hotel A la Renommée des Galettes, which was affiliated to a restaurant. The owner was the Alsatian chef Paul Antoine Graff (1823–1893), locally known as  Le Père Paul, whose special dish was galettes, i.e. Breton crusty cakes. This reputation was reflected in the name of the hotel. On a later occasion, these puff pastry cakes were also featured in Monet's still life Les Galettes (private collection). 
On the day of his arrival he described in a letter to his companion/housekeeper Alice Hoschedé his regret that he hadn't come earlier to Pourville. He described Père Paul as an excellent chef and was pleased with his accommodation: "The landscape is very beautiful … one couldn't be nearer to the sea, as I am now, directly on the beach, the waves reach up to the basement of our house." Apart from the portrait of Monsieur Graff Monet also painted a portrait of Madame Graff. The painting La Mère Paul (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts) shows  Madame Graff in dark clothes joined by her loyal terrier Follette. Both paintings of the Graff couple were probably created as Monet's recognition of their hospitality.			
			
		
		
			
			
		
Portrait of Père Paul and La Mère Paul are two of the few portraits that Monet painted after the death of his first wife Camille in 1879. Other paintings are those of his son Michel Monet Wearing a Bobble Hat in 1880 and his self-portraits of 1886 and 1917. Apart from paintings of the Graffs and his own family, Monet also painted  a portrait of the fisherman Poly (Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris) in 1886. The fisherman Poly  with his full beard and the characteristic facial features shows some resemblance to Père Paul as shown in the Portrait of Père Paul. Melissa MacQuillan noted in the Graff portrait and in the painting of Poly a nearly  physiognomic exaggeration, which reminds one of his early works as a caricaturist in his youth. The art critic Richard R. Brettell also draws a comparison between the Portrait of Père Paul and the ironic drawings of Monet's adolescence. Several of these caricatures exist from the late 1850s, for instance the painting Mario Uchard (Art Institute of Chicago).
terrier still life Art Institute of Chicago Galette Breton Cambridge, Massachusetts Fogg Art Museum galette Musée Marmottan Monet Pourville Alsatian Michel Monet Normandy Alice Hoschedé