Sotheby's sold the Iris on Thursday evening in Paris for €50 million including buyer fees, which the auction house said equals $56 million.
Sotheby's said the buyer is a private collector in Asia. The painting was auctioned by heirs of Jeanne Schlumberger.
The canvas had never been publicly shown before the sale. Monet painted it between 1924 and 1925 at Giverny, near Paris, during the late period when he created his celebrated water lilies.
Jeanne Schlumberger kept the work at her Left Bank residence and consistently declined loan requests. Because of that, Thomas Bompard - who oversaw the auction and serves as co-head of modern and contemporary art for Sotheby's France - described the work as being in a "miraculous" condition: untouched, unvarnished and unlined, a rarity for a piece of this caliber, he told reporters last month. He added that Monet's late works are now among the most sought-after, and that Schlumberger was attracted to their contemporary and abstract qualities rather than his impressionist touches.
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This sale resets the benchmark for Monet Irises, topping the previous category record of £10.8 million - equivalent to $17.1 million at the time - set at Christie's London in 2015. Monet's overall auction record remains $110.7 million for Meules, sold by Sotheby's in New York in 2019.
The timing coincides with the 100th anniversary of Monet's death, and special exhibitions are underway, notably at Paris's Musée de l'Orangerie that displays his famous water lilies. The painting's provenance traces to Jeanne Schlumberger, a prominent collector who acquired exceptional works, including by Paul Cézanne and Gustave Moreau, through her friendship with gallery owner Katia Granoff. Her husband, Marcel Schlumberger, was one of two brothers who founded the namesake company that became an oil-services giant. Four years ago, the firm adopted the name SLB Ltd., and its market value now stands at about $72 billion.
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