Claude Monet was the star of a Sotheby’s auction of Impressionist and other modern art that pulled in more than $200 million for dozens of works Monday in London.
Monet’s iconic “Nymphéas,” part of a series of paintings featuring water lilies from the Impressionist master’s garden pond in Giverny, France, fetched roughly $54 million at the famed auction house’s evening sale. The 1906 painting, which had previously been estimated between $34 million and $51 million, was bought by an anonymous private collector. Another painting from Monet’s Nymphéas series, once owned by the late reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, sold for $27 million last month in New York. (Another rare water lilies painting sold for $80.4 million, a record for Monet’s works, in 2008).
Sotheby’s also auctioned off a work by Dutch De Stijl artist Piet Mondrian on Monday. Called “Composition with Red, Blue and Grey,” the 1927 painting sold for $25.9 million. In total, the auction house sold 46 works by artists including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.
