Monet's Water Lilies Masterpiece to Auction at Christie's New York

A rediscovered masterpiece by Claude Monet, Le bassin aux nymphéas (1917-1919), will be auctioned at Christie's New York on November 9 as part of the 20th Century Evening Sale. The painting, estimated to fetch around $65 million, has never been exhibited or offered at auction before. It has been held in the same private collection since 1972, making it a 'fresh to the market' work. Measuring over two meters wide, a canvas of this size and quality has not appeared at auction since 2018, when a similar Monet sold for $84.7 million from the Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller. Max Carter, Vice President of 20th and 21st Century Art at Christie's, described it as a 'rediscovered masterpiece' that is 'stupefying now as it was a hundred years ago.' The work belongs to Monet's later period when he experimented with broader brushstrokes and water landscapes, initially coolly received by contemporaries but later admired by Abstract Expressionists. Today, such works are held in prestigious private and museum collections worldwide.