Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France

The Musée de l'Orangerie is an art gallery of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. Though most famous for being the permanent home for eight Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet, the museum also contains works by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Rousseau, Alfred Sisley, Chaim Soutine, and Maurice Utrillo, among others.

the Orangerie was originally built in 1852 by the architect Firmin Bourgeois and completed by his successor, Ludovico Visconti, to shelter the orange trees of the garden of the Tuileries. Used by the Third Republic in the nineteenth century as deposit for goods, an examination room, and place of lodging for mobilized soldiers, it also served to house sporting, musical, and patriotic events. Additionally, it was a place to display exhibitions of industry, animals, plants, as well as rare displays of painting.

User Reviews

Paul Evans (4 months ago)
Absolutely fantastic gallery in the shadows of the huge iconic museums. Make a visit, if not just to see Monet's waterlilies in the two oval rooms. Arrive when it opens to ensure you can stand back and admire them from every angle, near and far - they're incredible! The gallery's collection has many other fantastic works and temporary exhibitions.

Chandni Ghosh (4 months ago)
I'm so happy to visit this museum. It's like dreams come true. Can spend hours before Monet's Willow tree and Lily pond. So beautiful. Huge display. Except Monet's work, there are so many world famous paintings. art enthusiasts can get glimpse of work of PierreAuguste Renoir and Paul Cezanne.

Lorenzo (5 months ago)
After what I admit no research, I was expecting it to be focused only on Monet. I was positively surprised of the amount of well known artists they had in the lower floor. Varying from impressionists, fauve and cubists (Cezanne, Picasso, Modigliani..) Really enjoyed it and the audio guide (for a 5€ fee) was worth it to give the paintings their context. A lot of the story of the artists is described on the panels next to their paintings.

Antonio Valenzuela (5 months ago)
Meditative and beautiful, not overwhelming like the Louvre can be. Everything as advertised, well set up, tastefully presented. I recommend the Orsay-Orangerie combined ticket as it'll save you a bit of money and both museums are great experiences.

Theresa Tran (6 months ago)
Nice little museum in the park with some beautiful pieces of art. Today my husband and I enjoyed a couple hours inside on a rainy day. No line, €9 a person to enter. They do have a coat check but you could also just hold onto your things. Two main floors of art with a small cafe and gift shop in between. The lowest floor has a collection from various artists. Informative plaques in French and English make it really easy to know about the artists featured. Audio guides are €5. On the top floor you can find Monet’s water lilies. We were lucky enough to see both the rooms. Midway through seeing the second room they asked everyone to leave and blocked off the room. Not sure why but seemed unfortunate since Monet’s Waterlilies is what many people look forward to seeing. Very manageable museum that doesn’t feel too over whelming.

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Moszna Castle

The Moszna Castle is one of the best known monuments in the western part of Upper Silesia. The history of this building begins in the 17th century, although much older cellars were found in the gardens during excavations carried out at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the investigators, including H. Barthel, claimed that those cellars could have been remnants of a presumed Templar castle, but their theory has never been proved. After World War II, further excavations discovered a medieval palisade.

The central part of the castle is an old baroque palace which was partially destroyed by fire on the night of April 2, 1896 and was reconstructed in the same year in its original form by Franz Hubert von Tiele-Winckler. The reconstruction works involved an extension of the residence. The eastern Neogothic-styled wing of the building was built by 1900, along with an adjacent orangery. In 1912-1914, the western wing was built in the Neo-Renaissance style. The architectural form of the castle contains a wide variety of styles, thus it can be generally defined as eclectic.

The height of the building, as well as its numerous turrets and spires, give the impression of verticalism. The whole castle has exactly ninety-nine turrets. Inside, it contains 365 rooms. The castle was twice visited by the German Emperor Wilhelm II. His participation in hunting during his stay at the castle was documented in a hand-written chronicle in 1911 as well as in the following year. The castle in Moszna was the residence of a Silesian family Tiele-Winckler who were industrial magnates, from 1866 until the spring of 1945 when they were forced to move to Germany and the castle was occupied by the Red Army. The period of the Soviet control caused significant damage to the castle's internal fittings in comparison to the minor damage caused by WWII.

After World War II the castle did not have a permanent owner and was the home of various institutions until 1972 when it became a convalescent home. Later it became a Public Health Care Centre for Therapies of Neuroses. Nowadays it can be visited by tourists since the health institution has moved to another building in the neighbourhood. The castle also has a chapel which is used as a concert hall. Since 1998 the castle housed a gallery in which works of various artists are presented at regular exhibitions.

Apart from the castle itself, the entire complex includes a park which has no precise boundaries and includes nearby fields, meadows and a forest. Only the main axis of the park can be characterised as geometrical. Starting from the gate, it leads along the oak and then horse-chestnut avenues, towards the castle. Further on, the park passes into an avenue of lime trees with symmetrical canals running along both sides of the path, lined with a few varieties of rhododendrons. The axis of the park terminates at the base of a former monument of Hubert von Tiele-Winckler. On the eastern side of the avenue there is a pond with an islet referred to by the owners as Easter Island. The islet is planted with needle-leaved shrubs and can be reached by a Chinese-styled bridge. The garden, as part of the whole park complex was restored slightly earlier than the castle itself. Preserved documents of 1868 state that the improvement in the garden's aesthetic quality was undertaken by Hubert von Tiele-Winckler.

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