Yahoo Finance One of Monet’s Haystack Paintings Could Fetch More Than $30 Million at Auction
Only Claude Monet could turn a stack of hay into stacks of money.
The Impressionist’s Meules à Giverny from 1893 will headline next month’s Modern Evening Auction at Sotheby’s, with a pre-sale estimate of more than $30 million. The piece, which depicts the painter’s famous haystacks, comes to auction almost 150 years after the first Impressionist exhibition opened in Paris in 1874.
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“Reflecting on the 150th anniversary of the very first Impressionist exhibition, we cannot take for granted how truly radical Monet was as a painter,” Allegra Bettini, the head of the Modern Evening Auction in New York, said in a statement. “With his haystacks, the revolutionary ideas and techniques that initially defined Impressionism are expertly employed during a moment of significant transformation for the artist.”
Meules à Giverny is one of a handful of Monet’s rare haystack paintings to be auctioned off in recent years. Five years ago, the artist’s Meules set a record for both a Monet piece at auction and any impressionist piece at auction when it sold for an eye-popping $110.7 million. While the painting being sold next month may not top that price, it’s an incredible find for any collector, especially as one of the last paintings Monet made with a focus on haystacks.
Originally owned by the American landscape painter Dwight Blaney, the painting was brought by him to the United States in 1895. It was lent to institutions like Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts before eventually landing in an impressive private collection, from which Sotheby’s will auction other works.
“Anchored by Monet’s Meules à Giverny, this impressive collection is the life’s work of a passionate collector whose remarkable self-education and natural eye have given us a captivating entry point into the pioneering spirit of Impressionism,” Benjamin Doller, Sotheby’s chairman of the Americas, said in a statement. “Assembled over four decades with meticulous care and attention, this collection stands as an expert guide to understanding the foundations of 20th-century art.”
Among the other works on offer are another Monet, Bennecourt ($6 million to $8 million); Pablo Picasso’s Courses de taureaux ($5 million to $7 million); and Camille Pissarro’s Paysage aux Pâtis, Pontoise, la moisson ($2.5 million to $3.5 million). We should expect a huge stack of money post-auction, then.
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