Think your love for botany rivals the late C.Z. Guest’s? Prove it, by placing a bid on Claude Monet’s “Nymphéas” painting, which is making its first appearance at auction at Christie’s Hong Kong this September.
“Nymphéas” is one of Monet’s earliest oil paintings, in which he took his water lily pond at his home in Giverny as his muse. The piece depicts an impressionistic view of a cluster of lily pads floating on cornflower-blue water. The painting was created over 125 years ago and remained in the Monet’s family private collection until now.
On September 26, the piece will head to sale and is expected to sell between $25 and $35 million. The painting will be sold alongside seven other pieces in the series, four of which are currently placed in museums around the world, including the Musée Marmotton Monet in Paris, the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, the Kagoshima City Museum of Art, and the Galleria Nazionale d’Art Moderna in Rome.
Altogether, these works mark Monet’s early explorations in using lilies, the theme that would dominate his works throughout the 20th century.
“Claude Monet’s Nymphéas are among the most influential images in modern art history,” Adrien Meyer, Global Head of Private Sales and Co-Chairman of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie’s said in a release. “These Nymphéas reveal the pictorial innovations that would define his celebrated series. Presented for the first time at auction, it is no wonder that half of the paintings of this first series are already held in public institutions.”
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