“Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil” will be offered at Christie’s Impressionist and modern art sale on May 6, its first time at auction in a generation. The current record for a Monet painting is US$36.5 million (euro24.26 million) for his 1904 “Nympheas,” which was sold last year.

The painting in hues of blue conveys “an idealistic view of the calm union of the old and the new, the rural and the industrial, of work and of pleasure,” Christie’s said.

Argenteuil was a center for pleasure boating among affluent Parisians and a popular subject for many Impressionist artists. Monet, who rented a house near the cast-iron railway bridge, painted the work in 1873.

Christie’s did not identify the seller, but The New York Times said last week it was the Nahmads, a family of art dealers with galleries in New York and London.

The painting was last auctioned in 1988 at Christie’s for US$12.4 million.

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