An oil painting by Claude Monet hailed as an “undisputed masterpiece” has set a new world record after being sold for $110.7m (£85.6m) at auction.
The work is part of Monet’s Meules (Haystacks) series comprising 25 paintings, which depict life near his home in the Normandy region of France.
The sale is the first time an Impressionist painting has been sold for more than $100m. Nymphéas en Fleur was previously the most expensive Monet painting, selling for $84.7m in May 2018.
“The winning bid shatters the previous record for the highest sum ever paid for a work by Monet, signalling the enduring value and popularity of the French impressionist master; the bid is also the record for any impressionist work of art,” Sotheby’s said.
The painting was last auctioned in 1986, when it fetched just $2.5m, and had been in the hands of one family for nearly a century. It is one of just four of Monet’s works to be auctioned this century.
Its buyer reportedly beat five other bidders at the sale in New York. Sotheby’s did not name the new owner.
The example is one of eight works from the series that remain in private hands. The other 17 examples are in the collections of leading museums around the world, including the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
