Musée de l’Orangerie, the Water Lilies of the Tuileries since 1927

The Musée de l’Orangerie opened in 1927 in the Tuileries Garden, by the Seine near the place de la Concorde, to house Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. The painter had given them to the State; the opening took place six months after his death, in the presence of Georges Clemenceau.

The building went up in 1852 to designs by Firmin Bourgeois, completed by Louis Visconti, to shelter the Tuileries orange trees in winter: glazed on the river side, blind to the north. Clemenceau, Monet’s friend, persuaded him to have his cataracts operated on and secured the building; Camille Lefèvre fitted out the rooms to the painter’s instructions.

In 1959 and 1963 the State acquired the collection formed by the dealer Paul Guillaume and then by his widow Domenica, who had married Jean Walter. From 2000 to 2006 Olivier Brochet removed the floor that had covered the Water Lilies since 1965, restoring the natural light Monet wanted. The museum has been linked to Orsay since 2010.

In the 1st arrondissement, eight great canvases by Monet cover the walls of two oval rooms. Below, the 146 paintings of the Walter-Guillaume collection: Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Henri Rousseau, Derain, Soutine and Utrillo.