Monet’s unseen ‘Iris’ fetches $56 million after 42-minute bidding war

The latest:

A late Claude Monet canvas of flowers in his Giverny water garden sold for 50 million euros, about $56 million, at Sotheby’s in Paris on Thursday, more than double its high estimate. Bidding ran 42 minutes among at least six telephone buyers before an Asian client won, bidding through Jen Hua, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, according to The New York Times.

Details:

• The work: The painting, titled Iris, measures roughly 5 feet tall and nearly 6 feet wide and shows flowers swaying above skies reflected in Monet’s lily pond. Experts believe it was painted outdoors in 1924-25, near the end of the artist’s life, according to the report.
• The estimate: Sotheby’s had valued Iris at between 20 million and 30 million euros before the sale. The hammer result cleared the top of that range by two-thirds, a gap auction houses rarely project on works of this scale.
• Never exhibited: Thomas Bompard, a senior international specialist at Sotheby’s Paris, said before the auction that the canvas had never been exhibited, and that once it entered its owner’s house, “it left the world.” That absence from public view was central to the sale’s pitch.
• The provenance: Iris belonged to Jeanne Schlumberger, an heiress to the Schlumberger energy company, now SLB. She bought it in 1957, a year after Paris dealer Katia Granoff acquired about 50 Monets from the artist’s son Michel, Sotheby’s said.
• Why now: Schlumberger died in 1983. Her descendants chose the 100th anniversary of Monet’s death to sell Iris alongside 26 other works from her collection, assembled in the 1950s and 1960s when late Monet paintings were out of fashion.
• The wider sale: The full Schlumberger collection raised 74.4 million euros, about $83.5 million, according to The New York Times. Sotheby’s did not break out results for the remaining 26 lots.
• The record: The auction high for a Monet remains $110.7 million, set at Sotheby’s in 2019 for the 1890 canvas Meules, or Grainstacks. Adjusted for inflation, that price would equal $145.7 million today, leaving Thursday’s result well short of the benchmark.
• Dealer reaction: Helly Nahmad, a London dealer in modern art, said he had never seen bidding run that long and called the contest insane, adding that such works are extremely rare. Helena Newman, Sotheby’s worldwide chairman of Impressionist and modern art, called Iris a true museum quality work.
• The market shift: Owners of trophy artworks once routinely consigned them to New York or London. Since Brexit made Britain a less attractive sale destination, European collectors have grown more willing to sell in Paris, according to the report.
• Price trajectory: Cyrille de Gunzburg, a Paris private dealer, said he negotiated the sale of a Monet from a similar date for $15 million in 2013. London dealer Alon Zakaim offered a rare pair of 1890s Monet landscapes at TEFAF Maastricht in March, asking $20 million; they sold after the fair.

Background:

Monet painted the Giverny water-garden canvases in his final years, and the late works were long dismissed as weaker than his earlier series. They were cheap enough in the 1950s for collectors like Schlumberger to buy in volume.

Between the lines:

Dealers quoted in the report tie the surge to reassessment rather than scarcity alone. Zakaim said the painting’s modern look attracts new buyers and that appetite for large, late Monets is increasing; de Gunzburg argued such works show Monet, not only Cezanne, shaped modern art. Read against the $15 million comparable from 2013, the 42-minute contest reads as repricing of a category once out of fashion.

What’s next

Watch the remaining Schlumberger lots and whether rival houses now route major Impressionist consignments to Paris rather than New York or London in the coming season.