Monet’s Iris sells for €50 million, setting French auction record

Claude Monet’s painting Iris sold for €50 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Paris on Thursday, setting a French auction record.

The price includes buyer fees and makes it the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in France.

The 1.6-metre-high painting was made in Monet’s later years and had never left the Schlumberger family’s Paris mansion.

It was known only through a black-and-white photograph before the sale.

Sotheby’s had estimated it would sell for €22 million to €30 million, so the final price was well above expectations.

The sale took place in the year marking 100 years since Monet’s death, with two exhibitions in Paris commemorating the artist.

Three Cézanne paintings were pulled from the same sale as their owners and the city of Aix-en-Provence consider an acquisition with support from France’s culture ministry.