Skip-the-line guided tour of the Musée de l'Orangerie
Once the winter home for orange trees belonging to the royals, today the Orangerie is dedicated to some of the most famous names in French art. On this 1.5 to 2 hour guided museum tour, your enthusiastic guide will lead you through its halls, revealing why this often forgotten collection is one of Paris’s most impressive.
You’ll stroll through the beautiful Tuileries Garden to reach the Orangerie. Established as a museum in the early 20th century, it became home to art that no longer fit in Paris’s other museums. The stand-out features, among all of the work on display, are the eight waterlilies painted by Claude Monet which have a permanent home in the Orangerie. The expansive collection of 19th century and early 20th century paintings features works by other renowned Impressionists and their disciples.
You’ll come to face to face with Cezanne’s studies of fruits and flowers, you’ll learn about the exotic style of Matisse’s seductive portraits, and you’ll trace Picasso’s phases through his interpretations of nude models. Additionally, you’ll learn the secrets behind works by artists including Modigliani, Renoir, and Utrillo. By the end, you’ll wonder why any visitor in Paris would pass by this world-class collection of French art.
Highlights generally include (if artwork is not on loan or being restored etc.):
- Monet’s Water Lilies
- History of the Orangerie/ Collections Walter Guillaume
- Renoir (Portraits, Piano Class, Claude Renoir, etc…)
- Monet at Argenteuil
- Cézanne, Still Life and Landscapes
- Picasso, Figuration Around 1900, Cubism and Surrealism
- Matisse’s Odalisques, the Fauves
- Laurencin, a Lady Painter
- Derain, Artists After the War
- Utrillo and Montmartre
- Le Douanier Rousseau
