It had been in the possession of the same family for more than half a century and is going up for auction in search of a record. ‘Le bassin aux nymphéas’ (‘The Waterlily Pond’) is an unpublished oil painting by Claude Monet (1840-1926) that, given the avidity of collectors for the father of Impressionism, could exceed the sixty million euros of its estimate at Christie’s New York auction on the 9th.
Two meters wide and more than one meter high, it is part of the legendary and luminous ‘Water Lilies’ series, the great works that museums and collectors around the world compete for. Monet painted it between 1917 and 1919 in Giverny, where after a lifetime studying color and light he illuminated the prodigious series.
“It captures the dynamism and fleeting beauty of nature, exploring the ephemeral atmosphere, seasonal blooms, watery depths and resplendent reflections of light,” praise Christie’s auctioneers of a fabric that remained in the same family collection for more than 50 years. “It was hidden and impeccably preserved,” says Max Carter, head of 20th and 21st century art at Christie’s. «It seems that everything has been seen and said about Monet, but this unexposed or auctioned canvas is a rarity. A rediscovered masterpiece », he adds.
Monet had a powerful influence on art, on contemporaries such as Vincent van Gogh and on successors such as Jackson Pollock, master of abstract expressionism. His paintings, highly criticized in their day, are being auctioned today for exorbitant sums. Another oil painting from the ‘Water Lilies’ series sold for 80 million euros at Christie’s in May 2018. Its record was set by ‘Meules’, a canvas from the ‘Ricks’ series painted in 1890 that was bought for 104 million at Sotheby’s a year later, when his estimate barely exceeded 50.
die painting
“I don’t have much life left and I must devote all my time to painting,” Monet wrote in 1918 to the Parisian dealer Georges Bernheim. «I don’t want to believe that one day I will be forced to leave Giverny. “I would prefer to die here in the middle of what I have done,” he added, alluding to the water lilies, the zenith of his career.
When he was working on ‘Le bassin aux nymphéas’ Monet was almost 80 years old – an age more than old for the time – and suffered from cataracts in both eyes. The First World War was coming to an end and the painter spent almost all his time in his leafy garden in Giverny, with the pond covered in water lilies that he painted some 250 times. He did not rest on his laurels or repeat himself, and in 1918 he commissioned 20 large-format canvases to work on in the water lily series. He completed 22 murals shortly before his death and donated them to the French state. In May 1927, the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, remodeled to house the legacy, opened its doors, and his ‘Grandes Décorations’ can still be seen there. Masterful works by Monet are visiting Spain, in the exhibition that CentroCentro Madrid dedicates to him until February.
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