Claude Monet's Iris Painting
Claude Monet was nearly blind by 1922, diagnosed with cataracts so severe his doctor found him legally blind in one eye and left with only 10 percent vision in the other. He underwent three risky eye operations before finally regaining enough sight to keep painting. Iris was completed in 1924-25, in the years right after that recovery, at his garden in Giverny, and it has never been shown publicly or restored. It still carries its original, unvarnished canvas, kept in remarkable condition after hanging in the same Paris sitting room for roughly a century. Jeanne Schlumberger acquired it directly from Monet's own son through gallerist Katia Granoff rather than at auction, and her family is only now putting it up for sale as part of a 28-work collection worth more than $45.9 million. Sotheby's has placed an estimate of $25.3 to $34.4 million on the painting alone, the highest pre-sale estimate ever given to a work sold at auction in France, with bidding coinciding with the centennial of Monet's death.
