Monet's 'Iris' painting sells for €50 million and becomes France's most expensive auctioned artwork

Claude Monet's 'Iris' sold for €50 million, including fees — roughly $56 million — at a Sotheby's auction in Paris on the evening of Thursday, Oct. 22, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction inside France.

45 minutes of bidding

Pre-auction estimates for the painting ranged between €22 million and €30 million, but the sale turned into about 45 minutes of competition among six bidders before settling on a private buyer from Asia who participated by phone. Thomas Bombart, co-head of the Modern and Contemporary Art department at the firm's French branch, said in a statement after the sale: "Six bidders, 45 minutes, €50 million, and a new record for France. Tonight, Paris was Monet's."

A new French record

With this price the painting surpassed the previous record, set by the sculpture "Head of a Caryatid" by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, which sold for €43.2 million in Paris in 2010. However, that record is calculated at face value; experts say that Pablo Picasso's painting "The Wedding" (sold in Paris in 1989) remains the most expensive when adjusted for inflation. The global record for Monet's work remains the "Haystacks" painting sold in New York in 2019 for $110.7 million.

A painting never shown to the public before

Monet painted the canvas between 1924 and 1925, shortly before his death. It is a large, near-square work measuring approximately 1.60 by 1.80 meters, and is the largest in the series of Iris paintings he produced in his garden at Giverny, northwest of Paris. The painting had not been shown to the public since it was painted until it was exhibited ahead of the auction. Marianne Mathieu, a Monet specialist and former director of the Musée Marmottan Monet, says it remains on its original canvas and has not suffered any damage, that the paint layer is entirely intact and that it has not been varnished.

From the Jean Schlumberger collection

The painting came from the collection of Jean Schlumberger, heir to the Schlumberger industrial family, whose works she assembled over decades in collaboration with Paris gallery owner Katia Granoff. Twenty-seven lots from the collection were sold that evening, including three other Monet paintings, and the auction's total proceeds reached €74.4 million, far exceeding pre-sale estimates; more than three-quarters of the lots sold above their high estimates.

The iris: Monet's favorite flower

Monet's late works, painted at Giverny while he was suffering from poor eyesight, have attracted increasing interest from collectors; critics say they helped pave the way for abstract painting in the 20th century. The iris was one of the artist's favorite flowers, which he painted in around 20 canvases where the boundaries between the flowers and their reflections on the water dissolve.