Monet’s Meule to be highlight of Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art sale

Monet’s Meule to be highlight of Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art sale

A highlight of Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 16 November in New York, Monet’s Meule (1891) is among the most formally adventurous in the Grainstacks series. It is also one of five paintings from the series that the American-based dealer Knoedler selected from the artist in September 1891, and the only one from that group to still be in private hands. The majority of the Grainstacks series are now housed in major art museums around the world, including the Musée d’Orsay, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Gallery of Scotland.  ‘We have been extremely aware of the growing passion for classic Impressionist paintings among our Asian collectors,’ said Jussi Pylkkäne, Christie’s Global President. Meule was exhibited for the first time in Asia at Christie’s Hong Kong (17-19 October), currently being exhibited at Christie’s London and will be on display to the public at Christie’s Rockefeller Center galleries in New York from 5 November. Prices for exceptional examples of Monet’s work have soared in recent years, driven by demand from collectors worldwide for museum-quality works by the greatest master of the Impressionist period. The top price at auction for any Monet painting is $80.4 million for Le Bassin aux Nympheas from 1919, sold at Christie’s London in June 2008 against an estimate of $35-47 million.