When one thinks of Claude Monet’s Giverny, one inevitably thinks of the Water Lilies cycle, his most famous paintings, inspired by the water lilies planted in the property’s pond. The water garden, with its asymmetry and curves, is reminiscent of the Japanese gardens that Monet knew from the prints of which he was an avid collector. During the last twenty years of his life, the nympheas were his great passion and he painted them in every light. Monet gave his first large panels to the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris as a symbol of peace, the day after the armistice, on 12 November 1918.