L'Orangerie reopens after six years

We were fortunate to be in Paris when the l'Orangerie Museum finally opened after six years of renovations. The name refers to the original purpose of the building to store the Tuileries Garden citrus trees during the winter.



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The collection of Impressionist paintings of art dealer Paul Guillaime has been moved to the basement to open up the top floor to allow natural light to bathe the Monet Water Lillies. It includes impressionist works from Cézanne, Renoir, Picasso, Soutine, Derain and Henri Rousseau and others. We were particluarly interested because we had recently seen an exhibit, at the Met in NY, of the collection of another dealer in Impressionist works, Ambroise Vollard. The quality of the collections and the complex relationships they had with the artists they represented were faschinating. Both started with relatively little money but accumulated large fortunes and incredible art collections - to the envy of their clients.




On the ground floor, two large oval rooms are devoted to the fabulous Water Lilies by Claude Monet. Each room contains eight canvases that surround the oval room with a vision of the famous waterlilies at his home in Giverny. A major part of the renovation was the removal of the second floor of the museum which had been added in the 1960's and blocked the natural light that Monet had cherished. Because of the large size of the paintings (painted for these rooms), they could not be moved and were left in place during the six years of renovations. The curator was quoted as saying:

"The most important thing for us was the restoration of natural light,
which was so fundamental to Monet. The study of light is the basis of the
Impressionist movement, so we wanted to restore that as the essence of this
building, which was once described as the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism".


Musee l'Orangerie
Place de la Concorde