Art seller may be rolling in Monet

A PAINTING of London’s Houses of Parliament by the Impressionist master Claude Monet is expected to make up to $45-million (about R530-million) at an auction in New York next month.

Painted in 1900-1901, it is one of 19 versions of the same subject.

Le Parlement, soleil couchant was first acquired in 1904 by the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. In 1989 it was sold to a Japanese collector in New York for $9.9-million. After it was sold in New York in 2001 for $14.6-million to the present owner, it was lent to the National Gallery for seven years.

Sources believe it is being sold by British billionaire Sir Philip Green.—