Monet ‘Iris’ Painting—Last of its Kind in Private Hands—Could Break French Record at Sotheby’s Paris

In October, Sotheby’s Paris is auctioning a never-before publicly shown, stunning Claude Monet painting from the artist’s “Iris” series (1914–17 and 1924–25), kept for decades in the Jeanne Schlumberger collection, carrying an estimate of €22 to €30 million ($25 to $34 million). Painted just one year before he died in 1926, the eponymous abstracted painting of purple and yellow irises reflecting on water is set to break the country’s auction record for a sold painting, ARTnews learned after viewing the artwork, which was unveiled today.

It is the largest example of the Impressionist’s beloved “Iris” series to come to the market and measuring 63 by 71 inches; it is also the largest work from the artist’s final years to remain in private hands. “Demand for Monet’s late works has never been this high,” Sotheby’s senior international specialist Thomas Bompard told ARTnews. Five of Monet’s top auction prices date to works made after 1914.

Iris is one of 28 lots in the Impressionist and Modern art sale on October 22, titled “Le Temps Retrouvé: The Schlumberger Collection.” It is estimated to be worth over $45 million.

Coinciding with the centenary of Monet’s death and a slew of exhibitions honoring him, not to mention Art Basel Paris, another work on offer by the artist includes Monet’s Saule pleurer (Weeping willow), 1918–19, painted in a fall palette, after the First World War. It has an estimate of €9 to €12 million ($10 to $13.9 million).

Schlumberger also collected the early, experimental landscape triptych by Paul Cézanne from his famed fresco Paysage romantique aux pêcheurs (1862–64), originally for the artist’s family estate in southern France known as Jas de Bouffan. Estimated at €400,000 (about $460,000), it has also been labeled a national treasure, meaning the French state has 30 months to try to acquire it.

The collection also comes with an intriguing provenance story of its own. Two women: Jeanne Schlumberger (1889–1983), the heiress of the Schlumberger oil company who valued her privacy, and art dealer Katia Granoff are behind the visionary collection, including late-career Monets, works by Paul Cézanne, Pierre Bonnard, Gustave Moreau, Chaïm Soutine, and Georges Rouault.

Granoff acted as an advisor and dealer to Schlumberger, who preferred not to vaunt her collection to Parisian high society. Granoff was the one who made the bold decision to secure a trove of Monet’s later works made in Giverny from his son, Michel, when few others were interested in France. According to Bompard, she risked everything she was worth to acquire Michel’s studio holdings, helped by Schlumberger’s additional financial backing. The two divided the paintings between them.

Schlumberger and Granoff were “independent, and very clever,” Bompard told ARTnews. “Jeanne Schlumberger comes from a family of brilliant engineers, and she was one of the first French women to have a driving license, and she loved driving beautiful sports cars, but she hated attention and publicity,” he said. That explains why much of her collection remained out of sight to the public. “Only the closest people in her inner circle saw her collection – although she was a generous patron to many museums, she did not want her collection to leave her walls,” Bompard explained.

“Jeanne Schlumberger and Katia Granoff recognised the radical brilliance of these works at a time when many still overlooked them. One collected, the other championed; both trusted their instincts when the world seemed to have already made up its mind,” Bompard wrote in a statement.