$25 Million for a Claude Monet “Water Lilies?”

By Jill Brooke

If you want to make a splash opening your Hong Kong auction house, leave it to flowers to help.

Christie’s just announced it will offer Monet’s iconic “Water Lilies” painting for auction for its launch on September 26th.

Titled “Nympheas (1897-1899), Art Net says it is “one of the most valuable Western artworks ever offered at auction in Asia.”

As any Claude Monet lover knows, this iconic painting depicts the artist’s beloved water lily pond at his home in Giverny, France.  The French painter, born in 1840, was the founder of impressionism painting who is also seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. As he said, “I am following nature without being able to grasp her, I perhaps owe having became a painter to flowers.” Prior to this sale, this painting lived with a private collector.

Auction houses recognize the power of the flower in art sales. Whether it is Matisse, Frida Kahlo or Georgia O’Keefe, flower themes sell. The auction house said it hopes to sell this Monet for north of $25 million. (Though in 2014, one of the Water Lilies painting was sold at auction for $54 million and is now at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Initial asking price was $31 million).

Water Lilies (French term is Nympheas) was a series of 250 oil paintings. Looking over his beloved garden, he made these flowers the main focus of his artistic production during the last 30 years of his life. Oh, and here’s a fun fact. Many of these works were painted while Monet suffered from cataracts.

In the language of flowers, waterlilies symbolize rebirth because the flowers close at night and come back in the morning.

Monet was also a fan of glads, the flower of August. He also created many beautiful interpretations.

As the auction house, Christie’s pointed out in a previous sale, “Although the artist painted still-life only intermittently during his long career, his achievement in the genre has been widely recognized.

“In his garden at Vétheuil, where he lived from 1878 until 1881, the central path was lined by painted pots filled with tall stalks of red gladioli.” says a spokeswoman.

As Monet, who died in 1926, often said, “I must have flowers, always, and always.” He often said, “If I could even put into words what flowers have given me, but a few that do come to mind are joy, life, passion, happiness, strength, compassion.”

Luckily he could not only put the beauty of flowers into words – but also his paintings.