Water Lilies

Monet signed this canvas and dated it 1907, though Daniel Wildenstein, who catalogued his work, thought it more likely belonged to 1908. A pale channel of reflected sky runs down the middle, with the lilies drifting across it in colours kept very close together. The picture then stayed with Monet for about 15 years. He let the Paris dealers Bernheim-Jeune have it only in September 1923, while he was absorbed in the huge water-lily panels later installed at the Orangerie. In 1926 it went to Henri Canonne, a Paris pharmaceutical magnate who owned 17 canvases from the series. His heir sold it at the Hôtel Drouot auction house in June 1942, in occupied Paris. By 1952 it had crossed the Atlantic to Toronto, and in 2005 it sold at Christie's in New York for just over 14 million dollars.