Orangerie Museum
The Orangerie Museum is one of Paris’s best museums.
Yes, it receives a good number of visitors, though not as many as the Louvre or the Musée d’Orsay. The Orangerie is frequently overlooked by visitors on a quick trip to Paris, France.
But, regardless of how much time you have in Paris, I believe this small museum should be on your itinerary.
Let’s take a look at why this is one of the museums you should not miss.
Where is the Orangerie Museum located?
The Orangerie Museum is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the First Arrondissement. It is located in a corner (the west end) of the museum, one of Paris’s fabulous parks, near the Place de la Concorde, one of the city’s famous plazas.
This museum is not hidden in any way, which is both a plus and a disadvantage. It’s convenient because it’s easy to find. A disadvantage is that it is not one of those seldom-visited museums tucked down some back alley.
The Orangerie Museum began as a greenhouse for orange trees and has since become home to an extraordinary collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, including some of Claude Monet’s masterpieces. Although it is smaller than other museums in Paris, the collections are fascinating, and its location in the heart of the Tuileries Garden is ideal.
Another advantage of the Orangerie Museum is that it is not as popular or crowded as its neighbors, the Louvre Museum or the Orsay Museum, allowing for a more relaxed and personal visit. Being able to enjoy Monet’s wonderful “Water Lilies” without being obstructed by noisy tourists – as is the case with the “Mona Lisa” – is unquestionably advantageous!
The Orangerie Museum’s Must-See Works of Art
The Orangerie Museum has 156 paintings on permanent display that were created between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and came from two donations: “Water Lillies” by Claude Monet and Domenica Walter’s private collection. The majority of the authors are French, but there are also artists from Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the former Russian Empire:
With Apollinaire as his mentor, Paul Guillaume quickly established his first art gallery and began negotiating works of art and sponsoring artists such as Cham Soutine and Amedeo Modigliani. The collector amassed dozens of works by Renoir, Cézanne, Modigliani, Matisse, Picasso, Derain, and Soutine between the 1910s and his death in 1934.
After his death, his wife Domenica married the architect Jean Walter and continued her first husband’s collection, selling and buying paintings based on her tastes. In 1959, she donated all of her artworks to the French government, which began displaying them at the Orangerie museum under the title “La collection Jean Walter et Paul Guillaume.”
Claude Monet decided to offer a set of paintings to the French state as a symbol of peace the day after the Armistice (November 11th, 1918). Surprisingly, this collection of “Water Lillies” was part of a series of paintings on the theme that the artist had begun nearly thirty years before!
Monet was able to capture the changing sunlight in Nature, depicting the passage of the hours from dawn to dusk, thanks to the Water Garden he owned at his home in Giverny. Water lilies and weeping willows, as well as the reflection of trees and clouds in the water, punctuate the bucolic landscapes of these works of art.
