Monet's sheaves auctioned for $110 million in New York: it's a record for the artist

A canvas from the Haystacks series by Claude Monet (Paris, 1840 - Giverny, 1926) fetched a very high price of $110,747,000 (just under €99 million) at auction last night in New York at Sotheby’s.This is a record for Monet, which “underscores the enduring value and popularity of the French Impressionist master,” the auction house announced. It is also the highest paid Impressionist work ever and is among the ten most expensive works passed at auction.

The figure also gives an account of the painting’s importance. Meules (this is the title of the work, meaning simply “sheaves”) was purchased in 1892 by collector Bertha Honoré Palmer, the wife of a wealthy Chicago industrialist, who saw Monet’s works on display in Paris in 1891. The collector then decided to enter into negotiations with the famous dealer Paul Durand-Ruel and succeeded in acquiring the work, which joined a sizeable Impressionist collection put together by Mrs. Palmer. It was then sold by the heirs in 1986 (at that time it went through Christie’s auction for two and a half million dollars). It is, moreover, a work that was exhibited only once, namely at the historic 1891 exhibition mentioned above. The public therefore never got to see this painting. The other canvases in the series are almost all held in museums halfway around the world (there are about 20 in all), but another work in the series had been fetched $81.4 million at Christie’s in November. Monet’s record, however, belonged to the Water Lilies in Bloom, which was also beaten at Christie’s in May 2018 for $84.6 million.

Pictured: Claude Monet (1891; oil on canvas, 72.7 x 92.6 cm)

Monet's sheaves auctioned for $110 million in New York: it's a record for the artist

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