Claude Monet's Iconic Haystacks to be auctioned for More than $30M at Sotheby's

Now, a century and a half later, as the milestone anniversary of the first avant-garde is commemorated around the world with exhibitions, books, documentaries, and more, Sotheby’s will present Mo,et's Meules à Giverny (1893) as a highlight of the Modern Evening Auction, spotlighting one of the artist’s more enduring and beloved motifs and one of the most celebrated hallmarks of Impressionism. The auction will also mark five years since Monet’s Meules (1890) achieved $110.7 million at Sotheby’s, establishing a record price for the artist and for any Impressionist piece sold at auction.

Executed in 1893, Meules à Giverny is one of only a handful of works by the artist featuring his iconic haystack motif to come to auction in recent years and represents the last moment Monet fully engaged with the subject of large haystacks. It also comes to market with distinguished provenance, having been brought to the United States in 1895 by its first owner, the American landscape painter, Dwight Blaney, who immediately lent it to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The work has remained in the same private collection for decades.

Works from the collection will be unveiled in Sotheby’s global galleries this week before going on view from 3 May in New York, ahead of the Modern Evening Auction on 15 May.

Meules à Giverny was executed during a transformational decade for Claude Monet, in which the artist first began to depict two of his most iconic and widely recognized motifs: haystacks and water lilies. Meules à Giverny is an important example of Monet’s later period haystacks, a subject that first started appearing in his work in the early 1880s. In the midst of his effort, he wrote to the critic Gustave Geoffroy: “I am working very hard, struggling with a series of different effects (haystacks), but at this season the sun sets so fast I cannot follow it…The more I continue the more I see that a great deal of work is necessary in order to succeed in rendering what I seek.” He would paint two or three per year before entering into a period of high productivity from 1890-91, culminating in the first group of works the artist ever exhibited as a series when fifteen canvases were shown at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1891. 

By depicting the French countryside, Monet also carried forward a rich tradition long upheld by artists like Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon school. Haystacks, a common sight in rural France, reflected the absence of individual threshers in each village, often leading to lengthy waits for the machinery. These towering structures, which varied in shape depending on the region, were a familiar sight dotting the fields around France, and would inspire fellow Impressionists such as Camille Pissarro, who painted haystacks between trees and pathways near his home in Éragny. 

Yet Monet infused this tradition with his own unique style, employing short, fragmented brushstrokes, making use of the revelations in surface handling honed while completing his series focused on Rouen Cathedral, which he began in 1892 and finished in 1894. In Meules à Giverny, Monet depicts the luminous essence of a sunny day, creating striking contrasts between light and shadow. The resulting verdant, earthy hues beckon viewers into the tranquil landscape, with the monolithic haystack dominating the frame. This work was the last moment Monet fully engaged with the subject of large haystacks.