Christie's will auction Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 1876-77 painting 'La femme aux lilas (Portrait de Nini Lopez)' in its 20th Century Evening Sale on May 18, with an estimate of $25 million to $35 million. The work has been owned by the Whitney Payson family since 1929 and is being sold from the collection of the late Lorinda Payson de Roulet, daughter of the original buyers, Joan Whitney Payson and Charles Payson.
The sale highlights the enduring legacy of a major American collecting dynasty and tests the current market for Impressionist masterpieces. While Christie's calls it the most important Renoir to come to market in decades, its estimate falls well below the artist's $78.1 million auction record, set in 1990 by another Renoir once owned by a different branch of the same family.