Paris · Tuileries
Musée de l'Orangerie
Two oval rooms built to Monet's specification to hold the Water Lilies
The eight Nymphéas panels, curved around two rooms lit only from above
Monet gave the Water Lilies to the French state the day after the armistice in 1918 and spent his remaining years arranging how they should be shown. The result is two oval rooms in a former orangery in the Tuileries, lit from above by daylight, with eight panels curved around the walls so that the water has no corners.
Downstairs the Walter-Guillaume collection adds Cézanne, Renoir, Soutine and Modigliani, which would be the main event in most museums and here functions as a coda.
The detail
Good to know
- Gift
- Monet to the French state, 1918
- Rooms
- Two ovals, natural overhead light
- Also here
- Walter-Guillaume collection
- Combined ticket
- With the Musée d'Orsay
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