One of Monet’s First Water Lily Paintings to Highlight Christie’s Asia Sale
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Christie’s is selling a painting from Claude Monet’s earliest Nymphéas series at the first evening auction taking place in its new Hong Kong headquarters this fall.
Nymphéas (Water Lilies), painted circa 1897-99, is among seven works by the French impressionist that were his first forays into exploring variations in light, colour, and reflections in the water lily pond at his home in Giverny, France.
The work, which Christie’s said is being offered from an anonymous private collection after remaining with the Monet family for years, is expected to sell for between US$25 million and US$35 million.
Christie’s Cristian Albu, head of 20th/21st-century art for Asia Pacific, called the painting “a true singular treasure.” It’s about 2 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 3 inches in size.
Monet created more than 250 paintings of waterlilies in his lifetime, several of which have sold for record sums at auction. Last November, Le bassin aux nympheas , 1917-19, sold for US$74 million, with fees, at Christie’s in New York. (Estimated auction prices don’t include fees).
The highest price for a Nymphéas was set during Christie’s sale of the Peggy and David Rockefeller Collection , fetching nearly US$85 million, with fees.
What’s notable about the work Christie’s is selling in Asia is that it’s among Monet’s first to focus on waterlilies, and that it introduces what the auction house said is “one of the most important and radical aspects of his Nymphéas —the elimination of a horizon line.” As with many of these works, the viewer looks directly at the pond’s centre, “removing all other peripheral details to focus entirely on the constantly shifting relationships between water, atmosphere, and light that transformed the pond’s surface with each passing moment.”
Other examples from Monet’s first water lilies series can be found in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Kagoshima City Museum of Art in Kagoshima, Japan, and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome.
The Hong Kong sale, which will take place on Sept. 26, will be Christie’s first at its new Asia-Pacific headquarters in the Henderson, a newly built 39-floor skyscraper by Zaha Hadid Architects with a curved glass facade.
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