Monet’s Iris Could Fetch €30 Million in Paris—but Its Backstory Is Very Unique
A painting with a €30 million upper estimate hardly needs help attracting attention. Yet the most interesting way into Claude Monet’s Iris may be to look past the price.
The late canvas is heading to Sotheby’s in Paris on 22 October 2026 as part of Le Temps Retrouvé: The Schlumberger Collection. Its estimate is €22 million to €30 million, placing it at the centre of an auction that brings a remarkable private collection into view.
There is the familiar auction-season intrigue: a famous name, a major work and the possibility of a dramatic evening in the saleroom. There is also a quieter story about who recognised the importance of these paintings before their standing seemed so secure.
What is Monet’s Iris?
Sotheby’s dates Iris to circa 1924–25, near the end of Monet’s life. The oil on canvas measures 159.6 by 180 centimetres, giving the flowers a scale far removed from a small decorative still life.
That size is worth pausing over. On a phone screen, almost every painting becomes a rectangle of similar dimensions. In a room, this one demands a different encounter. It is broad enough to occupy your field of vision rather than sit politely within it.
The catalogue records a line of ownership from the artist’s estate to his son Michel Monet, then Galerie Katia Granoff and the Schlumberger collection. Those names provide the route into a story that extends beyond the artist himself.
The women who saw something worth keeping
Dealer Katia Granoff and collector Jeanne Schlumberger helped champion Monet’s late work at a time when it did not enjoy the unquestioned admiration it attracts today.
Granoff acquired works from Michel Monet with Schlumberger’s financial support, and the women divided the paintings between them. Their judgement now forms part of the interest surrounding the collection’s appearance at auction.
It is a useful corrective to the idea that great art moves smoothly from studio to universal acclaim. Collections are built through decisions: what to look at again, whose judgement to trust and when to follow a conviction that others have not yet adopted.
We tend to celebrate those decisions once a market has vindicated them. The more revealing moment is earlier, when conviction carries some uncertainty. That is what makes the Granoff–Schlumberger connection so engaging.
There is more than one Monet to watch
The Schlumberger sale also includes Saule pleureur ou L’Arbre de feu, estimated at €9 million to €12 million, alongside further Monets and works by artists including Cézanne, Bonnard and Camille Claudel.
Seeing the sale as a collection, rather than simply the backdrop to its most expensive lot, offers a richer way to approach it. What did its owners want to live with? Which works speak to one another? What kind of eye does the group reveal?
Those questions remain interesting whether or not you have any intention of bidding. An auction catalogue can be an invitation to look more closely, rather than merely a list of prices.
What the estimate actually means
The €22–30 million range is Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate for Iris, not a confirmed result. The auction has yet to take place, and the eventual amount paid will depend on bidding and applicable charges.
For now, the most rewarding response is to spend a little longer with the work. Look at its scale, consider its late date and follow the ownership history back beyond the forthcoming sale.
The price will produce its own story in October. The decisions that kept this painting in a collection for decades are already worth our attention.
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