Monet painting, sold for $56.6 mn, becomes the most valuable view of Italy

Claude Monet’s Le Grand Canal et Santa Maria della Salute has gone under the hammer for $56.6 million (£45 million), making it the most valuable view of Italy by any artist sold at auction.

The piece has joined a series of Monet masterworks that have sold for more than $50 million (£40.1 million) in consecutive New York sales at Sotheby’s.

The previous record sale for any view of Italy was achieved by Turner’s Rome, From Mount Aventine, which sold at Sotheby’s in London for $47.6 million (£37.4 million) in 2014.

The sum also makes the painting the most valuable painting of Venice by the artist sold at auction.

Monet’s previous record was $36.5 million (£29.6 million) achieved by Le Palais Ducal, sold at Sotheby’s in London in 2019.

Channeling the magic of the water-based city on canvas, Le Grand Canal showcases pure brushstrokes of colour and light. “Le Grand Canal is a pivotal work that bridges the artist’s ground-breaking Im¬pressionist innovations and their continued evolution into a more freeform abstract approach,” Sotheby’s said.

Many canvases created by Monet during his three-month trip to Venice in 1908 are in prominent international museum collections, such as the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco.