The clouds

In 1920 the plan was still a round pavilion. The architect Louis Bonnier had drawn a single circular room, lit from above, for the grounds of the Hôtel Biron in Paris, the mansion that had recently become the Rodin museum, and Monet's largest water-lily compositions were to line its wall. The cost, and Monet's own demands, sank it. On 31 October 1921 he accepted the Orangerie instead, a former greenhouse for the orange trees of the Tuileries garden, where the architect Camille Lefèvre built two oval rooms under daylight filtered through fabric. This composition, three canvases joined into one band almost 13 metres long, took the north wall of the first room. The clouds in it, pink and white, lie in the pond among the lily pads, seen only as reflections. The rooms opened to the public in May 1927, five months after Monet's death.