The Orangerie Museum in Paris (Le Musée de l’Orangerie) is a small museum with works of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. Widely known for a series of panels with water lilies by Claude Monet, created by the artist specifically for the museum. More than 900 thousand people visit the Orangerie every year!
The Orangerie Museum is located in the center of Paris, on the outskirts of Tuileries Garden, near the embankment Seine River and Place de la Concorde. The closest metro station to the museum is Concorde. There are many other attractions near the museum: Louvre, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel, Orsay Museum…
Claude Monet’s water lilies in the Orangerie Museum. Here are 8 similar panels by this artist. According to his will, all 8 paintings should always be together within the same exhibition.
The Orangerie Museum got its name from the building in which it is now located – it was once a royal greenhouse, built back in 1852. In the old days, orange trees were kept here in the winter, which were taken outside into the Tuileries Garden in the summer.
But the once royal greenhouse became a museum only in the 1920s, when one of the leaders of France, politician J. Clemenceau, decided to place here a series of paintings with water lilies by Claude Monet, who was his friend. The tranquil landscapes with water lilies were meant to be a contrast to the First World War, with all its horrors and deaths.
Today the Orangerie Museum is a branch of the larger Orsay Museum, located on the other side of the river from it (read more about the Orsay Museum on our website here). Typically, these two museums are visited as part of one excursion. There is even a single ticket for these two museums on sale.
Oval room with Monet’s water lilies in the Orangerie Museum in Paris
The Orangerie Museum has two floors, which display works by such famous artists as Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Hentry Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Alfred Sisley, etc. Naturally, the most famous are Claude Monet’s water lilies. They represent eight panoramic paintings (panels) placed on the walls of two oval halls specially created for them. You can sit in the center of the hall and look at these paintings from all sides in a circle. Claude Monet painted his water lilies while sitting on a pond in his home estate of Giverny. Many lovers of this artist’s work specially go to his house to compare the landscapes around him with the painted pictures.
The Orangerie Museum is open every day except Tuesday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visitors are no longer allowed inside after 5:15 p.m. Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month. Anyone under 18 years of age also has free entry to the museum. Tickets to the Orangerie Museum cost 10 euros online and can be purchased here. With an electronic ticket, you can enter the museum without a queue (or rather, through a separate, smaller queue for those who have already bought a ticket in advance). You will need to show the ticket on your mobile phone screen; you do not need to print it. Also, at this link you can buy a single ticket for the Orsay Museum and the Orangerie Museum for 19 euros (prices are as of 2019).
Pierre Auguste Renoir. Nude woman in a landscape. One of the paintings by this artist, located in the Orangerie Museum.
Near the entrance to the Orangerie Museum there are sculptures of the famous Auguste Rodin – Masha Pasha recommends them too look.
