Musée de l'Orangerie

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Coordinates: 48°51′49.88″N, 2°19′20.18″E

Claude Monet: Nymphéas, 1920-26

The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. It contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Chaim Soutine, Alfred Sisley and Maurice Utrillo among others.

The gallery is on the bank of the Seine in the old orangery of the Tuileries Palace on the Place de la Concorde near the Concorde metro station.

[edit] History

A cycle of Monet's water-lily paintings, known as the Nympheas, was arranged on the ground floor of the Orangerie in 1927. The museum has housed the Walter-Guillaume collection of impressionist paintings since 1965.

The museum was closed to the public from the end of August 1999 until May 2006. For several months before it was closed there was a special exhibit of Monet's Nympheas that were gathered from museums throughout the world. More than 60 of the 250 paintings he made of the water lilies in his garden were included. The walls were repainted in shades of purples and violet for this special exhibit. The Orangerie was renovated in order to move the paintings to the upper floor of the gallery. They are now available under direct diffused light as was originally intended by Monet. The eight paintings are displayed in two rooms.