A Long-Hidden Monet Just Made History. Now a $180 Million van Gogh Heads to New York.

For almost a century, hardly anyone had seen it in color.

Claude Monet's Iris (1924–25), a nearly six-foot-wide canvas painted in the last years of his life at Giverny, was known to most art historians through a single black-and-white photograph. It had never been exhibited publicly. On October 22 it finally went in front of buyers at Sotheby's in Paris, and six of them spent about 45 minutes bidding against each other.

When it was over, Iris had sold for €50 million ($56.2 million) to a private collector in Asia bidding by phone. That's the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in France, according to ARTnews. The estimate had been €22–30 million, so it sold for well over double the low end.

A white-glove night in Paris

Iris led the sale of the collection of Jeanne Schlumberger, an heir to the Schlumberger oil-services fortune. Every lot sold (what the trade calls a "white-glove" sale), and about three-quarters went above their high estimates. The evening brought in €74.4 million ($83.7 million), the most for a fine-art sale in Sotheby's Paris history, The Art Newspaper reported.

It was a big night for Monet in particular. Three more of his canvases sold, including a Giverny weeping willow for about €9.7 million. And it happened in 2026, the centenary of his death. Artnet also noted that the French state and the town of Aix-en-Provence pre-empted three early Cézanne paintings from the sale. They had been part of a mural in Cézanne's family home, and they're now designated national treasures headed for the Musée Granet.

Next stop: New York, Nov. 16–20

Paris was only the warm-up. Artprice calls New York's November sales "the market's next major test." Sotheby's expects about $1.1 billion across its November sales and Christie's more than $800 million, per Observer.

The paintings to watch:

  • Vincent van Gogh, Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Trees in Blossom), 1890. Sotheby's, Nov. 18. Reported estimate: about $180 million. Van Gogh painted it days after arriving in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he spent the last two months of his life. His current auction record is $117 million, so it could set a new one.
  • Paul Cézanne, Arlequin, 1888–90. Same sale, about $120 million. It's one of only four paintings in Cézanne's Harlequin series and the only one still privately owned. His teenage son posed in the red-and-black diamond costume. ARTnews says it hasn't been shown publicly since 1975.
  • Wassily Kandinsky, Betonte Ecken, 1922–23. Christie's, Nov. 17, estimated at $60–80 million. His record is about $44.8 million, so this could nearly double it.
  • Heroes & Lovers. Also at Christie's on Nov. 17, a group of works widely reported to come from artist Jeff Koons's own collection. It's led by Picasso's Le Baiser (1969) at about $40 million.

Both the van Gogh and the Cézanne come from the Blaquier-Arrieta Collection: twelve Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings assembled by Argentine collectors Carlos Pedro Blaquier and Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, mostly in the 1970s. The collection is valued at around $450 million, and most of it has been out of public view for half a century, AP reported.

One thing to know before you read the results: an estimate is a forecast of the hammer price, and reported records usually include the buyer's premium. A $180 million estimate can come out to well over $200 million once fees are added, as Beyond Every Art explains.

Why it matters if you're not a billionaire

There's a pattern across all of these sales. The pictures that start bidding wars are the ones with a story: never exhibited, kept by one family for fifty years, known only from an old photograph. Iris didn't more than double its estimate on brushwork alone. People were bidding on the sense of discovery.

That holds at every price point. It's also why I write the history behind each of my own pieces. Pascale Petit, for example, is painted from the July 23, 1960 cover of Today magazine, with the French actress in a swimming pool, fully dressed. Like Cézanne using his son as the model for Arlequin, a lot of my portraits start with a real person and a moment someone else might have forgotten.

You won't need $180 million to own an original oil painting. Browse the Original Art collection to find a piece with a story you connect with, or start with a fine art print.

Will the van Gogh break $200 million with fees? I'll post the results here after the Nov. 18 sale. Check back, or follow along on Instagram.

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