The first and only stay of Claude Monet in Venice was immortalized in what has become one of the artist's most treasured works: The Palais Ducal in Venice in 1908. “This enchanting painting by Monet is one of the artist's greatest masterpieces, created during his first and only stay in Venice. Having remained in the same family collection since 1925, it represents a rare opportunity for collectors from all over the world to acquire a work of such value that has never before appeared on the market,” explained the president of Sotheby's Europe, Helena Newman.
In fact, for the first time in its history, the painting is going to be auctioned in the session scheduled for the next one February 26, 2019 in London at Sotheby's auction house.
Le Palais Ducal has belonged to the same family since 1925, when it was bought by Erich Goeritz, a textile industrialist from Berlin. Goeritz was an important collector of Impressionist works and built a large collection, enriched by celebrated paintings such as Édouard Manet's Un bar aux Folies-Bergère, now at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Philanthropist and patron of the arts, Goeritz donated a number of works to the new Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1933 as well as to British institutions such as the British Museum and the Tate Gallery. Almost a century later, Le Palais Ducal will be auctioned for the first time, with an estimate of between 20 and 30 million pounds.
The painting was exhibited early last year – for the first time in almost 40 years – together with that of the Brooklyn Museum, at the National Gallery in London, in a room entirely dedicated to the artist's Venetian series, during the Monet and Architecture exhibition.
Claude Monet arrived in Venice on October 1, 1908 and was impressed by the splendor of the city, describing it as "too beautiful to paint". During his three-month stay in the lagoon city, his artistic production was remarkable, allowing him to count about 40 painted canvases.
Le Palais Ducal is a painting that shows the public from all over the world the historic Gothic facade of one of the symbolic places of the Serenissima and belongs to a group of 3 works, which were made from a boat moored on the canal, one of which is in the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
The composition is harmoniously divided between the facade of the building and its reflection in the water. Monet animates the lagoon with wonderfully mottled brushstrokes which at the same time enliven the building's softly lit façade. The peculiar nature of Venice and its architectural heritage allowed Monet to explore more abstract compositions, where the interaction between the architecture and the expanse of water is accentuated.
