Claude Monet, Coin du Bassin aux Nymphéas , 1918 © Sotheby's
Sotheby's has unveiled a large-scale painting from Claude Monet's iconic "Water Lilies" series, which it will auction later this month, as the market for his works continues to experience strong interest. Coin Le Bassin aux Nymphéas (1918) will be auctioned off on November 16 at a modern art evening sale in New York, where it is projected to sell for more than $40 million.
During the last decade of his life, Monet completed the works. They get their ideas from the Giverny artist's garden. Coin Le Bassin aux Nymphéas is one of a number of late-period pieces that have recently fetched high auction prices. In 2008, the estate of Indiana philanthropists Irwin and Xenia Miller sold another work from the series at Christie's for £40.9 million ($80.5 million at the time). A water lily artwork from David Rockefeller's collection sold for $84 million at Christie's in 2018. Sotheby's sold Monet's Le Bassin aux Nymphéas for $70.4 million in May 2021. After 35 years in private hands, a picture from Monet's series of haystack paintings was purchased by German software magnate Hasso Plattner at Sotheby's in May 2019 for $110 million.
The soon-to-be-auctioned Coin Le Bassin aux Nymphéas isn't the first time it's been offered for sale in a public auction. The American buyer paid $6.7 million for the painting during a Christie's Impressionist and modern art sale 24 years ago when it was appraised at $4 million. The collector recently loaned it to the Denver Art Museum and the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany, for a 2020 show dedicated to the French painter.