Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Nymphéas, 1906
Estimate: £30 million to £40 million
Monet’s 1906 ‘Water-lilies’ at Christie’s London, June 2010 Most valuable art auction ever to take place in London will also offer Picasso’s ‘Blue Period’ portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto; Gustav Klimt’s magnificent portrait of Ria Munk; and further masterpieces by van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso and Magritte]]>
June 6th 2010, source: Christie’s
London – Christie’s announce that they will offer an exceptional water-lily painting by Claude Monet (1840-1926) at the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in London on 23 June 2010. Nymphéas, 1906, was included in the artist’s historic exhibition of the water-lily series in Paris in 1909 and remained in the ownership of the celebrated Durand-Ruel art dealing family for a number of following decades. Offered at auction from a private collection, it is expected to realise £30 million to £40 million.
Monet only painted the water-garden in Giverny 10 times prior to 1899, perhaps waiting for his landscapes and plants to mature, but in 1899 and 1900 the gardens became a prominent subject for his paintings. He became more and more occupied by the effect of light and the reflections from the water of the pond and became almost obsessed with his depictions of the gardens in Giverny, applying a level of perfectionism that saw him destroy a large number of works with which he was not completely satisfied. This was clearly reflected in a letter that he wrote to his friend Gustave Geffroy in 1908, when he was still occupied with the same theme: `You must know I’m entirely absorbed in my work. These landscapes of water and reflections have become an obsession. It’s quite beyond my powers at my age, and yet I want to succeed in expressing what I feel. I’ve destroyed some… I start others… and I hope that something will come out of so much effort.’ (Monet, quoted in R. Kendall (ed.), Monet by himself: Paintings, drawings, pastels, letters, London, 1989, p. 198).
Following the success of the corresponding sale at Christie’s New York on 4 May, where Pablo Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust established a record price for any work of art sold at auction ($106,482,500 / £70,278,450 / €81,991,525), the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on 23 June will present the most valuable art auction ever to take place in London; it will present 63 works of art and is expected to realise £163,670,000 to £231,180,000.
As well as Claude Monet’s Nymphéas, the auction will also include Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto, 1903, a Blue Period masterpiece by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) which is also expected to realise £30 million to £40 million, and which is being offered by The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, a charity which focuses on the promotion of arts, culture and heritage in Britain
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