November 8, 1999
Web posted at: 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT)

Monet's 'Waterlillies' sold for $22.6 million

From Producer Phil Hirschkorn

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A pair of paintings brought in $38 million for sellers at Christie's on Monday evening, the highlight of the auction house's biannual sale of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art.

The most expensive item of the evening was one of Claude Monet's "Waterlillies" paintings, which sold for $22.6 million, the third highest price ever paid at auction for a Monet -- and well above the pre-sale estimate of $15 million.

Monet painted the oil on canvas of his pond in Giverny, France in 1906, an early date for his series of "Waterlillies" paintings. The record price for a Monet painting was set last year, when a different "Waterlillies" painting sold for $33 million at Sotheby's in London.

Earlier, Vincent Van Gogh's "The Bridge of Trinquetaille," an oil on canvas completed in 1888, sold for $15.4 million, the 10th highest price ever paid at auction for a Van Gogh.

Van Gogh's 'The Bridge of Trinquetaille' sold for $15.4 million

The price represented quite a gain on the $1.5 million purchase price of 1980, when the current seller bought it, but the price was below Christie's pre-sale estimate of $20 million.

The painting depicts the iron bridge that connected the town of Trinquetaille with Arles, where Van Gogh painted the piece and some his other most memorable works.

The buyers of the Monet and Van Gogh works were not immediately disclosed.

The prices paid include commissions for Christie's.