Your chance to own a Monet

It is not often that paintings by the great Impressionists come up for sale, so connoisseurs will be thrilled to hear works by Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir are going under the hammer at Christie's in London on June 24.

The Monet from the extensive collection of Irwin and Xenia Miller is not just any Monet either – it is from his famous water lilies series. Titled Le Bassin aux Nymphéas – meaning water lily pond – this oil on canvas was painted in 1919 and is expected to fetch between Dh130 million and Dh172m at the sale.

"Le Bassin aux Nymphéas is one of the great rarities of Impressionist art – a painting of Monet's beloved water lilies, forming part of his final painting campaign, that was signed, dated and sold by the artist soon after its execution," Olivier Camu, director and head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie's London, told Emirates Business.

"Monet had begun a series of large-scale nymphéas in 1914 and these would lead to his grandes décorations, the celebrated frieze now in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.

"Dated 1919, when Monet signed the picture and sold it with three sister works to Bernheim-Jeune in November that year, Le Bassin aux Nymphéas is one of the tiny handful of pictures from this period that he relinquished, as he tended to view his paintings of water lilies as a large, cumulative work in progress and guarded them jealously, seldom allowing them to leave his studio.

"Monet had long been passionate about his water lilies. Decades earlier he had successfully battled with local bureaucracy in order to gain permission to reroute the river Epte, damming a section and thereby creating a large pond and a water garden. He filled this with water lilies, selecting special hybrids in order to increase the range of the colours.

"This, then, is not a study, like so many other works from this period, but instead a highly finished work."

The provenance of Le Bassin aux Nymphéas itself speaks of its exceptional importance as, before becoming the centrepiece of the formidable collection assembled by Irwin and Xenia Miller, it was owned by Norton Simon, who gave his name to Pasadena's celebrated art museum.

The other significant work to come under the hammer at Christie's sale of Impressionist and modern art is Renoir's Portrait de Lise. This oil on canvas was painted in 1867 and is estimated to fetch Dh14m to Dh18m.

"Portrait de Lise is an elegant and important painting by one of the fathers of Impressionism, Pierre-Auguste Renoir," said Camu. "The picture shows his favourite model of the period, Lise Tréhot.

"It is a testimony to the personal importance of this picture that it remained in the hands of Jules Le Coeur, one of Renoir's best and most influential friends of the period and the man who had introduced him to Lise.

"It is telling of the quality of Portrait de Lise that, in 1924, it entered the collection of the famous designer Jeanne Lanvin.

"It remained in her hands until her death, before passing to her daughter, the Comtesse Jean de Polignac, also a patron of the arts.

"She would often hold concerts, of which the great surrealist artist Salvador Dalí would recall, 'In spring it was very pleasant at Comtesse Jean de Polignac's, where from the garden one listened to string quartets played in the interior, all aflame with candles and the Renoir paintings'."

Other major Impressionist and modern works at the sale are by Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and Camille Pissarro.