Trio Of Monets Could Exceed £40 Million At Sotheby’s

Claude Monet

Sotheby’s upcoming November Impressionist and modern art sale–has unveiled three major works by Claude Monet – all from the same private American collection – these works will be offered in New York on November 4 and could take over £40 million combined. The paintings pre-date the artist’s famous waterlily series, and are from the 1880s and 90s. According to a Sotheby’s statement about the works they “trace the evolution of Monet’s style as he challenged the limits of High Impressionism”.

The most expensive of the works, which is said to have an estimate of £15.5 – 21 million, is Alice Hoschedé au jardin (1881). Monet chose this painting to include in a 1889 show, “Monet Rodin,” at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. The subject, who is depicted sitting in a beautiful garden, was the artist’s lover – and was also the wife of the artist’s patron, Ernest Hoschedé, who was a major department store mogul of the period.

Before the sale, there will be a brief opportunity to see the work in the UK when it goes on display for a day on Monday 20th at Sotheby’s in London,including the two other beautiful works by the artist.

After the short exhibition the paintings will then be flown back to the US, where they have resided since the late 19th century. Simon Shaw, worldwide co-head of the Impressionist and modern art department stated that “each new generation of collectors rediscovers and reinterprets this great master.” The paintings were in fact some of the earliest Impressionist works to cross the Atlantic, when American collectors went mad for pictures by artists still seen as recklessly experimental in Europe.

The artist’s Sous les Peupliers (1887), is a depiction of the French countryside, and is estimated at £7–11 million, and his work Église de Vernon, soleil (1894), showing the peaceful Vernon with the town’s “resplendent reflection” in the Seine, is expected to bring between £4–5 million.

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