Monet's Iris Sells for €50 Million in Paris, a French Auction Record
A Claude Monet painting called Iris sold for €50 million ($56.2 million) at the auction house Sotheby's in Paris, the most ever paid for an artwork sold at auction in France, ArtNews reported.
Before the sale, Sotheby's had estimated the work at €22 million to €30 million. An estimate is the price range an auction house expects a lot to reach. The result came in well above that range.
Bidding lasted 45 minutes, with six collectors competing for the painting. The winning buyer was a private collector in Asia, represented in the room by Jen Hua, a deputy chairman of Sotheby's.
Iris was one of the works offered from the collection of Jeanne Schlumberger. The whole sale brought in €74.4 million ($83.7 million), the highest total ever recorded for a fine art auction at Sotheby's Paris. Another Monet from the same sale, Saule pleureur ou L'Arbre de feu, sold for €9.7 million ($10.9 million).
A painting by Pierre Bonnard, La Cueillette des Prunes, sold for €2.5 million ($2.9 million). That is a record for the artist at auction in France.
Three early paintings by Paul Cézanne were pulled from the sale before it began. They had been designated French national treasures, a legal status that limits a work's export from France. The city of Aix-en-Provence plans to acquire the three paintings for its Musée Granet, the city's museum.
The sale had been anticipated for weeks. In September, Sotheby's told Reuters from Paris that the long-unseen Monet might beat the French auction record. ArtNews also reported at the time that Iris is the last painting of its kind still in private hands, and artnet News described it as a work that had been hidden from public view for a long time.
For the people who make a sale like this happen, the evening meant a great deal of planning. Crates, climate-controlled transport, insurance and security all have to be arranged before a painting of this value reaches the salesroom. Those costs and logistics sit behind the headline figure.
What happens next for the painting is now in the hands of its new owner. For the Cézanne works, the question is whether the city of Aix-en-Provence can complete its purchase for the Musée Granet, so that the paintings stay in France and can be seen in a public museum.
