Monet's view of parliament in fog sells for £11m

[emad]

Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent
Friday November 5, 2004
The Guardian


Capital record... Monet's London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog, fetched £11m at auction. Photo: AP

A Claude Monet painting of the Palace of Westminster - transformed into a blazing vision by the effects of sunlight through a thick blanket of the London smog which the artist particularly relished - went for just under £11m at a Christie's auction in New York yesterday, making it the most expensive painting of London ever sold.
The painting, which has been in the family of the artist's dealer since he bought it from Monet in 1904, was the star of a sale which also included works by Miro, Van Gogh and Cezanne. Four bidders ended up vying for the Monet, which eventually went to a Lebanese financier, believed to be bidding on behalf of an anonymous collector.

When Monet fell in love with a subject he stuck to it like glue: he visited London repeatedly over 30 years, and painted 95 images of the Thames, of which only a handful are in private collections.

Curators at the Tate, where another of the Palace of Westminster series will be seen next year in an exhibition of Turner, Whistler and Monet, believe the series of studies of the effect of hazy light on the river was directly influenced by the Thames paintings of JMW Turner, particularly one of the fire which destroyed the old parliament building.

As he grew wealthier, Monet's London lodgings became more luxurious. On his last visits he was painting from a river view room in the Savoy hotel, though he borrowed the balcony of St Thomas's hospital, directly opposite the Palace of Westminster, for the parliament paintings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1343815,00.html

[Benhurst]

1. A great work of art, more relevant today than ever.

Parliament, under the leadership of Tony Blair, is totally fogbound.