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.

Napoleon III had the Orangerie built in 1852, to store the citrus trees of the Tuileries garden from the cold in the winter.

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.

[1] Due to the east to west orientation of the building the rooms are in the path of the Sun, which stretches along the same axis as the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre.

In 1946, after the end of World War II, many masterpieces from private collections were recovered in Germany by the French Commission for Art Recovery and the Monuments Men and they were displayed in the Orangerie.

A staircase with a banister was designed by Raymond Subes (1893–1970) which replaced the entrance to the Water Lillies paintings and led to rooms that displayed the new collection.

In 1966, the collection was publicly presented and inaugurated by the Minister of Culture, André Malraux, however, Domenica officially owned the paintings until her death in 1977.

[5] There was a third renovation project conducted between 1978 and 1984 to consolidate the buildings, refurbish the rooms and permanently house the collection which was given to the Orangerie after Domenica's death.

The Orangerie then became separate from the administration of the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume, whose impressionist paintings would be destined for the future Musée d’Orsay.

The renovations were delayed and changed after the discovery of remains of the Louis XIII wall which was constructed in 1566 to protect the Tuileries Palace.

[6] The Musée de l'Orangerie is the main story point of the 2000 French adventure PC game Monet: The Mystery of the Orangery.