The Monet being auctioned at Sotheby’s
Claude Monet’s Nymphéas of 1904 sells for £18.5 million at Sotheby’s London – second highest price for the artist’s work at auction ]]>
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2007 — Claude Monet’s Nymphéas of 1904, a ground-breaking work and one of the finest of Monet’s famous waterlily series ever to have come to the market, tonight realised £18,500,000 ($36,724,350) at Sotheby’s in London. No fewer than eight determined bidders drove the price from £8 million up to the final figure, when the hammer fell to a private Asian collector bidding over the telephone. This was the second highest price ever achieved for a work by the artist at auction. (The previous record of £19.8 ($33 million) was achieved for Bassin aux Nymphéas of 1900 at Sotheby’s London in 1998).
The Monet was the top lot in a sale which realised £80,395,200 ($159,592,512) – the third highest total for a sale of Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s London. The sale also set a benchmark in terms of the average lot price realised in any single session: the average lot price of £2.17 million is unprecedented in any auction ever held in London.
The second highest price in the sale was achieved for Henri Matisse’s Danseuse dans le fauteuil, sol en damier of 1942, which achieved £10,996,000 / $21,828,160 – a new record price for the artist’s work at auction. Estimated at £8-12 million, the work eclipsed the previous record of £10,015,704 ($18.48 million) achieved at Sotheby’s New York last Spring. A remarkably strident work, in which the sinuous shape of the model acts as a foil to the strong, geometric patterns of the setting, the painting attracted heated bidding from four determined bidders, finally selling to a private European collector, also bidding on the phone. When the work last appeared at Sotheby’s London in June 2000, it sold for £4.9 million.
Melanie Clore, Co-Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Department Worldwide, said: “We are extremely pleased with the results of tonight’s sale: Monet’s Nymphéas of 1904 achieved the highest price for the Impressionist and Modern art sales this week in London. The geographical range of tonight’s bidding was extraordinary: bidding came from Asia, Russia, the UK and the US. With 50% of lots selling over high estimate, tonight’s results are indicative of a very healthy market.”
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