An exhibit of Monet reveals the formative influence of Japanese art. Biographers offer varying accounts of that first Japanese print he bought: it was in Amsterdam, or Delft or Zaandam.

One day in 1871, legend has it, a French artist named Claude Monet walked into a food shop in Amsterdam, where he had gone to escape the Prussian siege of Paris. There he spotted some Japanese prints being used as wrapping paper. He was so taken by the engravings that…