Claude Monet sold $451 million worth of art in the first half of 2022. Another $350 million in Monets are coming to market in Fall 2022 with the Paul G. Allen collection.
More art by Claude Monet was sold in New York’s May sales than trades in even the biggest years for the artist. A full $310 million was traded for Monet paintings last month. That’s more than sold in 2019, a banner year for the artist.
The market for works by Claude Monet entered a dramatic new phase during the pandemic. Works that had been priced at auction between $27 and $36.5 million before the pandemic began seem to be trading at prices from $48 million to $70 million.
Claude Monet’s most prized works in the market these days are the ones that come from a series that depicts a landmark or view with different effects from the changing light and weather. Grainstacks, Venetian views, Britain’s House of Parliament, or poplar trees lining a road.
Claude Monet made one trip to Venice in 1908 rather late in his life. He was 68 when he arrived. While he was there he started 37 pictures which he would take several years to eventually finish, exhibit and sell. Sotheby’s is mimicking Monet’s desultory route to market for his Venetian views with today’s announcement.
This week in London nearly $70 million of Claude Monet’s art will be offered at Sotheby’s and Phillips with the overwhelming majority of the works appearing at the former house. It’s hardly uncommon for the influential Impressionist artist whose work prefigures Modern abstraction to be a mainstay of the auctions.
Sotheby’s has unveiled another Claude Monet work for the March 2nd sale in London. The late waterlilies work from 1914-1917 was purchased by Sotheby’s former owner Alfred Taubman in 1978 before he owned the auction house.
Five works by Claude Monet are coming to Sotheby’s for their Modern and Contemporary Evening auction in London March 2nd. With the dad-joke title of Monet x Monet | A Distinguished American Collection, the works have a combined estimate around $40 million (£30m).