Claude Monet, Le Parlement, soleil couchant, Oil on canvas, executed in 1902. Estimate: US$35-45 million. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2015.

NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced an additional major highlight of its upcoming May auction series in New York: Claude Monet’s Le Parlement, soleil couchant, a magisterial depiction of London’s Gothic Houses of Parliament, as viewed from across the River Thames. Estimated at US$35-45 million, Le Parlement, soleil couchant will be among the top lots of Christie’s Looking Forward to the Past evening auction on May 11, a curated selection of top-quality works that explores the most innovative artists and movements of the 20th Century. 

Jussi Pylkkanen, Christie’s Global President, remarked: “This wonderfully expressive Monet is simply one of the greatest depictions of the Houses of Parliament by the greatest artist of the 19th Century. Moreover, this picture heralds a new age in painting as artists were inspired by Monet to liberate colour and create wonderful abstractions by interpreting real subjects. One could argue that these pictures heralded the end of academic painting as artists were inspired to follow the path of abstraction from 1902 onwards. Monet was the father of modernism”. 

Claude Monet’s Le Parlement, soleil couchant remains today one of the most entrancing series to have been composed by the artist during the final phase of his career. Monet’s views of the Thames established a new departure in his work, preparing the ground for his last, mythic feat: the Nymphéas (Water Lilies) series. Depicting a beautiful sunset over the Houses of Parliament, Le Parlement, soleil couchant belongs to a group of nineteen views that Monet started working on in 1900 and 1901. Le Parlement, soleil couchant and all the other views of Parliament were painted during the late hours of the afternoon and in early evenings. The present work appears to be a fantastical vision: backlit by a luminous pink sky breaching through the crevices of the clouds, while the silhouette of Parliament rises like a blue mirage, wavering above the water. 

Of the series, only five— Soleil couchant included—are still in private collections. The remaining fourteen are part of the collections of some of the world's most important museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. 

The painting is one of three major works by Monet to feature in Christie’s upcoming Evening Sales in May; the auction house previously announced the collection of late Goldman Sachs Chairman John Whitehead, a 90-piece collection of classic Impressionist works led by Monet’s Paysage de matin (Giverny), 1888 and Les meules à Giverny, 1885, an important precursor to the artist’s iconic Haystacks series of 1890-91 (estimate: US$12-18 million).