LONDON, ENGLAND.- A supreme example from Claude Monet’s waterlilies series was unveiled at Sotheby’s in London this Tuesday, its first public exhibition since 1925.

Nymphéas, which has come from a private French collection, will be one of the highlights of Sotheby’s important evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on Monday, June 24, 2002, when it is estimated to fetch £10 to 15 million.



The appearance of the painting at auction follows on from the successful sales at Sotheby’s London of Monet’s Haystacks, which sold in June 2001 for £10.1 million and Degas’ Ballet Dancer, which was sold in June 1999 for £17.6 million. All three works were secured for sale by Andrew Strauss, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist department in Paris, and great grandson of the distinguished early collector of Impressionist paintings, Jules Strauss.



Melanie Clore, Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, said: ’As a result of Andrew Strauss’s close associations with the prestigious impressionist collections in France, we have been entrusted with the sale of this wonderful work. It has not been publicly exhibited since 1925, and has never been reproduced in any literature in colour, so its re-emergence now and exhibition at Sotheby’s is an event of huge importance for art historians and collectors.’ The painting was originally bought by the present owners’ grandfather from



Durand-Ruel, Monet’s dealer, in 1940. Durand-Ruel had acquired the work directly from the artist in 1910. Painted in 1906, this is one of the most beautiful of Monet’s celebrated series of paintings depicting the lily pond in his garden at Giverny. Monet had begun this series in the late 1890s and it had taken on a new intensity by 1903, once his famous pond had reached maturity.



Monet moved to the rural town of Giverny in 1883, but it was not until 1890 that he was finally able to buy the property he was living in. By the end of the 1890s Monet had transformed the garden surrounding the house into a horticultural paradise, with its familiar lily pond which was to provide one of the central motifs in the artists’s œuvre. The waterlilies series is now recognised as the culmination of Monet’s achievement as an Impressionist painter. In these masterly late works, light and colour play on the surface of the water, achieving effects that are almost abstract. The series represents a major landmark in the development of modern art in the 20th century.



A beautiful Degas pastel of ballet dancers from the same collection is also being offered in the sale and is estimated at £2 to 3 million. It was bought by the present owners’ grandfather in 1938 and has never been exhibited publicly before.