Christie’s announced a Monet from the water lilies series for its June sale in London capitalizing on the market energy created by the Gagosian show in New York. Bloomberg has the details:

“There’s a belief that great art is the new gold,” said Guy Jennings, partner in the London-based dealership Theobald Jennings. “There are people with a great deal of money who think art is a safe haven. They aren’t collecting, they’re depositing money in assets.” […] The 3-foot-high (0.9 meter) Monet canvas, a smoky evocation of light shifting across the surface of the artist’s Japanese- style water garden at Giverny, was one of five 1906 works in an exhibition of “Nympheas” paintings held by the dealer Durand- Ruel in Paris in 1909. The work remained in the Durand-Ruel family for several decades, said Christie’s. […] The 3-foot-high (0.9 meter) Monet canvas, a smoky evocation of light shifting across the surface of the artist’s Japanese- style water garden at Giverny, was one of five 1906 works in an exhibition of “Nympheas” paintings held by the dealer Durand- Ruel in Paris in 1909. The work remained in the Durand-Ruel family for several decades, said Christie’s.

Monet Painting May Fetch $58.6m in Biggest UK Auction (Bloomberg)