Concept

Musée de l'Orangerie

Summary
The Musée de l'Orangerie (Orangery Museum) is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Garden next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as the permanent home of eight large Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet, and also contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Alfred Sisley, Chaïm Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, and 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 and not far from the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay. Napoleon III had the Orangerie built in 1852, to store the citrus trees of the Tuileries garden from the cold in the winter. The building was built by architect Firmin Bourgeois (1786–1853). Bourgeois built the Orangerie out of glass on the (south) Seine side to allow light to the trees but the opposite (north) side is almost completely windowless to protect the citrus trees from the cold winds. Before the Orangerie was built, the trees were stored in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre. The main entrances on the east and west side of the building were decorated by architect Louis Visconti (1791–1853) who is also known for his renovations on the Louvre. The columns located at the doors are topped by triangular pediments that were sculpted by Charles Gallois-Poignant. The tops of the columns represent cornucopias, plants and ears of corn that relate to the building's agricultural function. After the Fall of the Empire in 1870 and the fire at the Tuileries Palace in 1871, the Orangerie became a property of the State, which continued to use the Orangerie in its original function as well as for public events such as music concerts, art expositions, contests and dog shows until 1922. After World War I, changes came to the Orangerie. In 1921, the State gave the building to the Under-Secretariat of State for Fine Arts along with another building, the Jeu de Paume.
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