The day after the Armistice in November 1918, Monet informed his friend Georges Clemenceau that he wished to donate two panels of his Water Lilies to the state as a symbol of peace. The artist had been working on the theme for over twenty years by this point, and Clemenceau convinced him to make a bigger donation. In 1920, Monet and Paul Léon, the director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, came to an agreement: a dedicated building would hold the panels, which Monet was in the process of painting. 
The act of donation was signed on 12 April 1922 and the panels were finally hung in the Musée de l'Orangerie in 1927, after the artist's death.