An exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie dedicated to Claude Monet and his relationship to time.

Here, Monet is at home. The two oval rooms of the Musée de l’Orangerie have housed, since 1927, the Large Decorations of the Water Lilies, his pictorial testament offered to France in the aftermath of the 1918 armistice. For the centenary of his death, the museum revisits the obsession that haunted his painting: time. Forty canvases retrace this quest. The series from the 1890s (Cathedrals, Haystacks, Poplars, Mornings on the Seine) dissect the moment as one dissects a material.

In front of Rouen Cathedral, Clemenceau would speak in 1895 of a “revolution without a shot fired.” The Water Lilies cycle, comprising more than two hundred and fifty canvases, would occupy the last thirty years of the painter’s life. It culminates in the two oval rooms, which André Masson would hail in 1952 as the “Sistine Chapel of Impressionism.” Monet appears as the patient chronicler of the hours, the seasons, and their metamorphoses… “Duration is time lived and felt,” said Bergson.

Orange Museum
From September 30, 2026 to January 25, 2027
Tuileries Garden, Place de la Concorde (Seine side), 75001
Metro: Concorde (lines 1, 8, 12) - Wed. to Mon.
9am-6pm, Fri. until 9pm - Closed Tue.
Price: €12.50 - Reduced rate: €10 - Free for under 26s