Paris did not need calm streets to prove its place in the auction calendar. Even as protests marked the week of Art Basel Paris, the city’s October sales series delivered nearly €300 million across the major houses — and one lot that rewrote the French record books.
At Sotheby’s evening sale of the Schlumberger Collection on 22 October, Claude Monet’s monumental late canvas Iris realised €50 million after a drawn-out contest of more than six bidders lasting about 45 minutes. The buyer was reported to be an Asian collector bidding by phone. Fresh to the market, never publicly exhibited, unlined and unvarnished, the painting is among the largest of Monet’s late iris works still in private hands. It becomes the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in France.
A collection that helped rediscover late Monet
Assembled over decades by Jeanne Schlumberger with dealer Katia Granoff, the collection was an early private champion of Monet’s late experiments when French taste still hesitated. The evening sale cleared white-glove for about €74.4 million against a €39.3 million low estimate; a weeping-willow canvas, Saule pleureur, added €9.7 million. Day sales pushed the Schlumberger-related total higher still, with Kupka and Giacometti among the standout modern lots.
Christie’s answered the same night with the Durand-Ruel family collection Generations of Vision: 27 lots, white-glove, about €41.7 million. Monet’s Bord des falaises à Pourville led at €12.8 million; Sisley and Renoir also found determined bidding. The following day’s 20th/21st Century evening sale, including the Thinking Italian chapter, added tens of millions more, with Fontana and Modigliani among the Italian highlights.
Design, Asia and a selective market
Phillips opened the week with a white-glove modern-and-design sale near €5 million, where Asian modernism (Hsiao Chin far above estimate) and mid-century design lots repeatedly outran expectations. Taken together, the week confirmed a familiar 2026 pattern: deep demand for great provenance and blue-chip names, thinner patience for ambitious estimates without a story. Paris, for one October week, had both the stories and the paddles.
Diana Luna. Sale totals and lot results as reported by the auction houses and trade press, October 2026.