The auction price for Claude Monet set a new record Tuesday as an early work by the French Impressionist artist was sold for more than 41 million U.S. dollars, media reported.

"Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil" -- a painting of a bridge with two trains passing over the Seine while pleasure boats float below -- was sold at a Christie's sale for 41,481,000 dollars, said Rik Pike, a spokesman for the auction house.

"It is the quintessential early Monet. We will not see another one this good for a long while, I don't suppose, unless this one lures a few out," Christie's honorary chairman and the evening's auctioneer, Christopher Burge, said.

The previous record for a Monet painting was 36.5 million dollars for his 1904 "Nympheas," which was sold last year.

Christie's said the buyer wanted to remain anonymous.

The sellers were reportedly the Nahmad family, dealers with galleries in New York and London.

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.

[Close] [comment]