Five Monet paintings sell for $84 million in London

LONDON - Agence France-Presse

Sotheby's staff pose for a picture with 'Le Grand Canal' by Claude Monet, during a preview of their upcoming Impressionist and Modern, Surrealist and Contemporary Art sale, at the auction house in London, England, Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015. AP Photo

Five paintings by French impressionist Claude Monet, including his famous 1908 "Le Grand Canal" view of Venice, sold for a total of $84 million (73 million euros) in a London auction on Feb. 3.
      
"Le Grand Canal", a hazy blue-and-green view of the banks of the Italian city painted at the peak of Monet's career, sold for $35.6 million (31.4 million euros).
      
It was part of a Sotheby's auction of impressionist and modern art works including paintings by masters Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse, and sculptures by Auguste Rodin.
      
Sotheby's said the artworks in the sale raised $283 million overall, a record total for an auction in London.
      
"Tonight's London Imp., Modern & Surrealist sales achieved 186.5m - the highest total for any auction ever held in London, in any category," the auction house wrote on its Twitter account.
      
Other works sold included Monet's "Les Peupliers a Giverny", a view of tall trees at sunset which previously hung in New York's Museum of Modern Art and sold for $16.2 million.
      
A brightly-coloured Matisse portrait of Princess Nezy-Hamide Chawkat, the great granddaughter of the last Sultan of Turkey, sold for $23.8 million.
      
An owl sculpture named "Chouette" hand-painted by Pablo Picasso and inspired by his own pet owl, sold for $1.9 million.
      
The $11.7 million paid for a drawing by Georges Seurat -- a study for his monumental "Une baignade, Asnieres" oil painting -- was a record for a work by the artist on paper, Sotheby's said.