Water Lilies (triptych) Auction History

Claude Monet, Giverny (in the artist’s studio) until his death; by inheritance to Michel Monet, 1926 [1]. In 1956, Michel Monet sold the triptych to Galerie Katia Granoff, Paris (per Wildenstein CR W.1972–1974, cited by MoMA) [1]. In 1959, it was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, purchased with funds including the Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund [1][2].

MoMA’s Water Lilies (triptych) has no recorded public auction; its path runs directly from Monet’s studio to a 1956 dealer sale and then MoMA’s 1959 purchase, a clear institutional provenance that typically removes a work from market circulation [1][2]. The museum’s 1959 press materials emphasized the triptych’s grandeur and presented it as a landmark example of Monet’s late, mural-scale ambitions, with conservation documented by Caroline K. Keck at its first U.S. showing [3].

The 1959 acquisition arrived in the wake of a significant 1958 fire at MoMA; reporting indicates that an insurance payout from the fire, cited at $100,000, helped fund the purchase alongside the Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund [4][5]. While the museum did not disclose a purchase price, the acquisition and subsequent display helped cement the stature of Monet’s late water-garden paintings in the postwar canon [2][3].

For market comparison, single-panel late Water Lilies have achieved some of the artist’s highest auction results: Nymphéas en fleur realized $84,687,500 in 2018; Le bassin aux nymphéas brought $74,010,000 in 2023; and a related late Nymphéas sold for $65.5 million in 2024 [9][7][8]. Monet’s overall auction record, set by Meules (Haystacks) at $110.7 million in 2019, underscores the sustained depth of demand for major series works [6]. Against this backdrop, MoMA’s triptych—retained by the museum since 1959—functions as a reference point for quality and scale in the category rather than a tradable market comp [1][2][3].