It took more than two years for gallery president Guy Wildenstein to put together the exhibition, a homage to his late father, the international art dealer and collector Daniel Wildenstein, who died in 2001.

"No loan was easy," he told AFP ahead of the exhibition. "For a museum like Phoenix (in Arizona), which lent us 'Flowering Arches,' an absolute masterpiece, the highlight of the exhibition, not having the painting for more than two months is a real sacrifice," he said.

While around a third of the pictures came from public museums in cities such as Chicago, New York and Paris, the remainder were loaned by private collectors, notably American and French owners.

Two works that belong to Monet's heirs have never even been on public display before, one a portrait of the painter's father seated in a garden and the other a view of the town of Bordighera in Italy.

Wildenstein, who now runs the gallery created by his great-grandfather in 1903, admits that the family name helped when putting together an exhibition of one of the world's most popular artists.

"He's a magical painter. What he was able to see in nature, light, transparency, water... all of that fascinated him and he knew how to capture it in a way that no-one else could," Wildenstein said.

"Cezanne said 'Monet is just an eye. But by God, what an eye!,'" he added.

The exhibition, which is in aid of breast cancer charities, opens Friday and runs until June 15.