Monet's later years saw him obsessively paint the lilies in his garden at Giverny, in northern France.
But his artistic legacy could have looked very different had Monet's rural neighbours had their way.
Local farmers wrote to the town hall to object to his plans to extend his garden in 1893.
The original documents about the case were unearthed by Ann Dumas, co-curator of the Royal Academy's Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse exhibition.
"There was a protest from local farmers who were very suspicious of these strange aquatic plants that Monet wanted to plant because they they would poison their water and kill their cattle," she said.
Monet, who moved to Giverny in 1883, had been able to buy land on the other side of a railway line that bordered his house.
It was here  he wanted to create his water garden by diverting the river Epte, a tributary of the Seine.
Dumas said Monet acquired planning permission for his garden "after a lot of difficulty".
"The farmers were suspicious of Monet anyway," she added. "He kept himself to himself so they saw him as an outsider. When they got wind that he wanted to make a water garden they complained."
The Royal Academy show, which opens next year, looks at the role of gardens in the paintings of Monet and his contemporaries.  Its 120 works span the early 1860s to the 1920s.
Alongside 35 paintings by Monet will be works by Paul Klee, Emil Nolde, Gustav Klimt and Wassily Kandinsky.
"It will be a show that will be both popular and scholarly," said Tim Marlow, the RA's artistic director.
"It isn't just a Monet show - though he is a central figure - and it isn't just an Impressionist show. It involves a whole range of late 19th Century and early 20th-Century artists."
One of the highlights will be Monet's water lily Agapanthus Triptych of 1916 - 1919 - the first time the monumental triptych has been seen in the UK.
"Monet thought of himself as a better gardener then he was a painter," said Dumas. "Not everybody knows what a serious and knowledgeable gardener and horticulturalist Monet was."
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse will run at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, US from 11 October 2015 - 5 January 2016 and then at the Royal Academy of Arts, London 30 January - 20 April 2016.
A new garden-themed art exhibition will tell the intriguing story about Claude Monet and the famous water lily pond that inspired his best-known works.