Monet’s Iris: 50 million euros, a record for an auction in France

On 22 October 2026, Iris, a large late canvas by Claude Monet, fetched 50 million euros, the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction in France. The exact price, how it compares with other records, the story of the painting and the sale itself.

How much did Monet’s Iris sell for?

Sotheby’s reports a final price of 50 million euros, or 56.2 million dollars. As is the auction house’s practice, published prices include the buyer’s premium, while estimates exclude it; the hammer price alone was not disclosed. Estimated at 22 to 30 million euros, lot 4 already carried, according to Sotheby’s, the highest estimate ever placed on a painting at auction in France. The final result exceeds the high estimate by two thirds.

France’s new auction record

For perspective, Christie’s achieved 43.2 million euros in Paris in 2010 for a carved head by Amedeo Modigliani. More recently, in April 2026, Vétheuil, effet du matin, a Monet landscape dated 1901, reached 10.2 million euros at Sotheby’s Paris: Iris is worth almost five times as much. The record is in nominal euros; adjusted for inflation, several estimates still rank Picasso’s Les Noces de Pierrette, sold at Drouot in 1989, ahead of it. Worldwide, Monet’s auction record is still held by Meules (1890), which sold for 110.7 million dollars at Sotheby’s New York in 2019. To compare with the very top of the market, see our ranking of the world’s most expensive paintings (in French).

A 1.80-metre canvas painted at Giverny

Monet painted Iris around 1924-1925, in the last years of his life, in the heart of his garden at Giverny. The 159.6 x 180 cm canvas belongs to a series of twenty iris paintings executed between 1914 and 1925. It is the largest example from the series still in private hands, and the only work of this scale from the painter’s final decade still outside a museum; its only true counterpart hangs in the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris. Never exhibited and known until then only from a single black and white photograph, the canvas was shown for the first time in Paris from 17 to 19 September 2026, then in Hong Kong and New York. Impressionism historian Marianne Mathieu describes it, together with the Saule pleureur from the same sale, as remarkably well preserved, unlined and unvarnished.

From Michel Monet to Jeanne Schlumberger

On the painter’s death, it passed to his son Michel Monet at Giverny, then to the Parisian dealer Katia Granoff, before entering the collection of Jeanne Schlumberger (1889-1983) in the family’s mansion on rue Las-Cases. According to Sotheby’s, in 1958 Jeanne Schlumberger appears to have discreetly financed Katia Granoff’s purchase of Michel Monet’s studio holdings, at a time when Monet’s late works drew little interest in France. The sale comes in the centenary year of the painter’s death, marked notably by the Monet exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie (in French).

45 minutes and six bidders

On the evening of 22 October, during Art Basel Paris week, at least six bidders competed for the lot. Iris finally sold to Jen Hua, Sotheby’s Deputy Chairman, Asia, bidding by phone on behalf of a private Asian collector. Before the sale, the six-day exhibition of the collection drew more than 9,000 visitors.

74.4 million euros for the collection

The sale “La Collection Schlumberger. Le Temps retrouvé” totalled 74.4 million euros (83.7 million dollars), a record for a fine art sale at Sotheby’s Paris, with 100% of lots sold and 74% above their high estimate. The three other Monets followed: Saule pleureur or L’Arbre de feu (1918-1919) reached 9.7 million euros, La Seine à Vernon, Arbres (1894) 4.3 million against an estimate of 1.2 to 1.8 million, and La Maison à travers les roses (circa 1925-1926) 2.5 million. Camille Claudel’s La Valse, a 1905 cast, made 832,000 euros and Pierre Bonnard’s La Cueillette des prunes 2.5 million, a record for the artist in France. Three Cézanne fragments from the Jas de Bouffan, designated national treasures, were withdrawn on the day: the city of Aix-en-Provence intends to acquire them for the Musée Granet.

Information checked on 31 October 2026. Sources: Sotheby’s press release of 22 October 2026 (Schlumberger sale results), lot 4 page, Sotheby’s, Sotheby’s press release of 17 September 2026, Sotheby’s Paris week results of 23 October 2026.