Claude Monet never tired of painting the water lilies in his Giverny garden, producing some 250 canvases that depicted them in different seasons and at varying times of day.
The lilies were so important to the impressionist master that in 1906, he asked Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister, to intervene personally to stop them from getting covered in dust.
In a previously unpublished letter to be auctioned next month, Monet urged Clemenceau to help him gain speedy permission to tarmac the dirt road beside his pond so that passing cars would stop throwing up damaging dust clouds.
The letter, written in Monet’s habitual purple ink, has been put up for sale by a private collector whose identity has not been made public. It is expected to fetch up to €15,000 (£13,200) at the auction by International Autograph Auctions Europe in Malaga, Spain on December 2.
The Water-Lily Pond, 1899
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Addressed to Clemenceau as “a minister and a friend”, the letter reflected the artist’s impatience with bureaucratic sluggishness. It explained that Monet had already applied to the local prefect in Normandy for permission to resurface the road.
“As I know that these requests always take a very long time to be granted due to the administrative process, I am asking you to put in a good word for me with the Prefect of Eure so that I can get my permission as soon as possible,” he wrote.
“This is very important for me because so many cars pass by here that not only is my garden covered in dust, but worse still, it greatly hinders my work. This shows you how much I am counting on your powerful support.”
Claude Monet wrote to the French prime minister asking for help to keep dust off the plants at his home in Giverny
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The letter appears not to have gone unheeded. “Monet’s request was granted and he did have the road tarmacked, although he had to pay for it himself,” said Francisco Piñero, a spokesman for the auction house.
Clemenceau was a friend and supporter of Monet and wrote a short biography of the artist. He persuaded him to have a cataract operation to save his failing eyesight in 1923, three years before his death.
The water lily paintings were Monet’s main occupation during his last three decades, and many were painted while he suffered from cataracts. They depict his flower garden and pond with a Japanese footbridge.
One of his water lily paintings, Le Bassin aux Nymphéas, sold for a record price of nearly £41 million at Christie’s in London in 2008.
Monet’s garden and home in Giverny are open to the public from April to November.
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