Charing Cross Bridge, a painting from Claude Monet’s renowned London series will be up for auction for US$20m-30m at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in New York. The work captured Monet's beloved Charing Cross Bridge in London and it has remained in the collection for 40 years since it was acquired by its current owner in 1977.

Monet’s famous London series was painted between 1899 and 1901 when Monet made three trips to London. He began his mornings painting the view of Charing Cross and Waterloo Bridges from his hotel room on the Victoria Embankment overlooking the River Thames. He had nearly 100 “Londons” in various states of completion at the end of his final trip in 1901. Twelve views of Waterloo and Charing Cross Bridges are among the most finished.

Throughout these works, the artist captured the juxtaposition of the beauty of natural phenomena, such as fog rolling over the Thames, with the industrial development booming in London at the time, epitomized by smoke stacks and steam powered railways.

Claude Monet's Charing Cross Bridge. Collection of Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Monet produced a series of 37 canvases of Charing Cross Bridge. Other examples of Charing Cross Bridge are held in the collections of institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Monet’s paintings of Charing Cross Bridge rarely appear at auction, according to Sotheby’s.

Andrea Klepetar-Fallek

Acquired by Andrea Klepetar-Fallek in 1977 through Galerie Beyeler, the present painting has remained in the same collection for more than 40 years. Klepetar-Fallek assembled a collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures with her late husband Fred Fallek. The collection will be offered across two Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art sales, which will take place on 12 and 13 November.

Claude Monet. Charing Cross Bridge

Lot no.: 8
Size: 65 x 100.3cm
Painted in 1903
Provenance:

• Georges Petit, Paris (and sold: Galleries Georges Petit, Paris, March 4-5, 1921, lot 100)
• Mr. Moch, Paris
• Mr. Kahn-Sriber, Neuilly (by descent from the above and until 1976)
• Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired by 1977)
• Acquired from the above in 1977

Estimate: US$20,000,000-30,000,000

Auction details

Auction house: Sotheby’s New York
Sale: Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
Date: 12 November 2019 | 7pm
Lots offered: 49