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Claude Monet's 'Iris' becomes most expensive artwork sold at auction in France, Sotheby's says

The sale set a new auction record in France after six bidders drove the price far above its estimate.

  • Claude Monet's painting "Iris" sold at Sotheby's Paris auction yesterday for a record-breaking price, exceeding the 30 million euro estimate and becoming the most expensive painting ever auctioned in France.
  • The 1.60 by 1.80 metre work had remained in the billionaire Schlumberger family's Paris mansion, known only through a black-and-white photograph before the auction exposed it to public view.
  • Hours before the auction, Sotheby withdrew three Paul Cézanne paintings classified as "national treasures," aiming for their return to the artist's hometown of Aix-en-Provence with French culture ministry support.
  • Concurrently, Christie's Paris auction sold 26 works totaling 41.6 million euros, including Monet's "Bord des falaises à Pourville" for 12.7 million and "Trois pots de tulipes" for 3.1 million euros.
  • This year marks the centenary of Monet's death on December 5, 1926, commemorated by two Paris exhibitions: "Monet, Painting Time" and "Stories of Landscapes, from Monet to Hockney.
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"Iris," a major work by the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet, was auctioned in Paris for 50 million euros, setting a record as the most expensive work of art ever sold in France.

Claude Monet's painting Iris, painted between 1924 and 1925, went off the hammer at Sotheby's in Paris for $56 million.

·Kyiv, Ukraine
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A painting by French impressionist Claude Monet that has never been exhibited in public has sold for a record 50 million euros at auction in Paris, the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction in France, Sotheby's said. The painting, "Iris," from the late painter's work, had been estimated at 22-30 million euros before the auction.

·Vilnius, Lithuania
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dnews.gr broke the news on Thursday, October 22, 2026.
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