Any art lover worth their salt will already be familiar with French impressionist artist Claude Monet’s water lily paintings, but perhaps not realise that his Nymphéas series was actually the precursor body of work that gave creative inception to the water lilies. One of Monet’s first pieces to depict the beloved water lily pond in his Giverny home (recently featured in the latest season of Emily in Paris, by the way) will soon be on auction in Hong Kong by Christie’s on September 26.
This marks the first time that this masterful painting is ever appearing at an auction – it has remained within the Monet family for many years since being completed 125 years ago, and is now being offered from a distinguished private collection. To give an idea of its exceptional rarity, four other paintings from the Nymphéas series are currently owned by global museums, namely the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Kagoshima City Museum of Art, and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome.
The Hong Kong public can visit this Monet painting during its public preview from September 22 to 26 at Christie’s new Asia-Pacific headquarters in The Henderson. Its live auction will then take place as one of the highlights of the 20th/21st Century Inaugural Evening Sale on September 26. The seminal artwork will be offered with an estimate of HK$200 to 280 million.
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