Historic Trove of Monets, Renoirs and Other Impressionist Masterpieces Expected to Fetch Up to $50 Million on Auction Block This Fall

Dozens of paintings from the private collection of Paul Durand-Ruel, the 19th-century aesthete who believed in the Impressionist movement when no one else would, are heading to auction next month in what is expected to be a blockbuster sale. Rarely viewed paintings by Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Eugène Boudin, Alfred Sisley and others—62 works in all—are expected to fetch between $35 million and $50 million. The auction, held by Christie’s, will take place during the final days of Paris Art Week in late October.

Generations of Vision thus offers a vivid testament to a family, artistic, and human adventure that elevated the Impressionists from misunderstood artists to universal icons and helped permanently transform the course of art history,” a Christie’s statement reads. In the latter half of the 19th century, in Impressionism’s early days, the school was subject to unrelenting mockery and ridicule across Europe. One critic labeled an 1876 gallery of these radical, colorful paintings with visible brush strokes a “mental asylum.” But Durand-Ruel refused to yield to negative public sentiment.

An entrepreneur from a wealthy family, he made it his mission to find an audience—at all costs—who would also appreciate the unheard-of artists whose canvases he so admired: the likes of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot and others. At great personal cost, he spent years providing artists with stipends and funding failing exhibitions. He even bid on and bought paintings—setting auction records, according to the New York Times’ Ken Johnson—from the very artists he funded.

Quick fact: How Impressionism got its name Finally, in 1886, Durand-Ruel found success with a change of scenery: the collectors of New York City flocked to the Impressionist style, and the movement and its artists were forever transformed. You cannot bring the people to your gallery, that’s difficult, so the works have to move to the people.” Not even a shred of the difficulty Durand-Ruel faced more than a century ago is expected at next month’s sale, which entirely features works that have been kept in the family’s estate. The biggest ticket is likely to be Bord des falaises à Pourville (1882), a landscape by Monet that was painted when the artist was “enduring a period of profound self-doubt,” according to the auction house.

Durand-Ruel responded to Monet with funds and encouragement: “I wish I could send you courage as well… the trials you are enduring will prove beneficial to you.” The painting is estimated to sell for between $12.8 million and $17.4 million. Other notable works include Sisley’s La route du Cœur-Volant en hiver, Louveciennes (1872), expected to sell for between $2.9 million and $4.1 million; Pissarro’s Le Louvre, soleil d'hiver, matin (1900), expected between $2.3 million and $3.5 million; and Renoir’s Jeunes filles au bord de la mer (1894), expected between $4.65 million and $7 million. Not long before his death in 1922, Durand-Ruel reflected on his life and career.

To think that, had I passed away at 60, I would have died debt-ridden and bankrupt, surrounded by a wealth of underrated treasures.” Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.