Hidden for Nearly a Century, Monet’s Iris Shatters French Auction Record at €50 Million

Image: Collected

A monumental, never-publicly-exhibited Claude Monet painting has become the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in France. Iris, painted in the final years of the Impressionist master’s life, fetched €50 million—about $56 million—including buyer’s fees at Sotheby’s Paris on Thursday, far exceeding its €22–30 million estimate.

A painting unseen in public

Measuring 1.60 metres high by 1.80 metres wide, Iris had remained inside the Paris mansion of the billionaire Schlumberger family and was known publicly only through a black-and-white photograph. It was painted around 1924–25, near the end of Monet’s life, and depicts irises rising above reflections in the artist’s celebrated Giverny water garden.

The work was acquired by collector Jeanne Schlumberger (1889–1983), who built an extensive collection of Impressionist and modern art during the 1950s and 1960s with the help of Paris dealer Katia Granoff. Sotheby’s says Iris was among roughly 50 Monets Granoff bought from the artist’s son Michel in 1956; Schlumberger acquired the canvas the following year.

Six collectors, 45 minutes

The sale produced a fierce contest: at least six telephone bidders competed for about 45 minutes before an Asian private collector, represented by Sotheby’s Asia deputy chair Jen Hua, secured the painting.

The result surpasses the previous record for a Monet Iris—£10.8 million, set at Christie’s London in 2015—and establishes a new benchmark for any artwork sold at auction in France.

A late Monet for a new market

Sotheby’s specialist Thomas Bompard described Iris as the largest of three horizontal iris paintings Monet created in the 1920s and the only one still privately owned. Its loose, immersive composition—without a clear horizon—has drawn renewed attention as collectors increasingly embrace the artist’s late, almost abstract works.

“It relates well to later 20th-century works,” Bompard told The New York Times, adding that demand for large late Monets is growing.

A landmark night in Paris

Iris led a sale of 27 works from the Schlumberger collection, all of which found buyers. The evening total reached €74.4 million ($83.7 million), the highest ever for a fine-art auction at Sotheby’s Paris; nearly three-quarters of the lots exceeded their high estimates.

The sale also included Monet’s Saule Pleureur (Weeping Willow), estimated at €9–12 million. The auction coincided with the centenary of Monet’s death in 1926, giving the rediscovered masterpiece an especially symbolic moment in the market.

While Iris now holds the French national auction record, it remains far below Monet’s global auction high: Meules (Grainstacks) sold for $110.7 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2019.