How Much Is San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk Worth?

San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk is a canonical image within Monet’s celebrated Venice campaign (1908–12), painted during his late career focus on atmospheric effects and serial motifs. The twilight San Giorgio compositions are among the most instantly recognizable Venetian views by Monet, frequently reproduced and widely exhibited. Within Monet’s oeuvre, the Venice series is rarer on the market than some earlier serial cycles and sits just below the apex Water Lilies in both fame and scholarly valuation. This painting’s dusk chromaticism, silhouetted architecture, and refined facture epitomize the qualities collectors prize in late Monet, supporting top-tier placement within the Venice subset.

Monet’s Venice works surface infrequently at auction, and best-in-class examples have recently achieved $35–57 million, with the 2022 Le Grand Canal et Santa Maria della Salute setting the high-water mark for the series. San Giorgio at dusk is a flagship Venice motif—its iconic skyline and crepuscular palette elevate it above more routine canal views. Because late Monet is a global trophy category for cross-category collectors, demand concentrates on instantly legible subjects with strong color and atmosphere. This painting’s composition and palette align precisely with those preferences, warranting a premium within the Venice cohort and justifying a valuation at or near the recent series peak.

Acquired in 1912 from Monet’s Venice exhibition by Gwendoline Davies and bequeathed to Amgueddfa Cymru, the painting carries distinguished provenance and continuous institutional custody. Such pedigrees reduce transactional risk and signify long-standing curatorial endorsement, which typically commands a pricing premium. While deaccession is unlikely, the museum context underscores the work’s quality and importance. In a hypothetical market scenario—e.g., insurance, loan, or a like-for-like privately held counterpart—this depth of provenance and published presence would be expected to attract broader bidder participation and stronger underwriting terms, translating into higher realized values relative to comparable but less documented examples.

Recent late-Monet benchmarks include $74.0m for a Water Lilies (Christie’s, 2023) and $65.5m for another Nymphéas (Sotheby’s, 2024), while the Venice-series record stands at $56.6m (Sotheby’s, 2022). These results indicate sustained depth for blue-chip Impressionism despite a generally selective top end. Category volumes have softened due to limited supply of trophies rather than collapsing demand, suggesting that a fresh, iconic Venice view would still attract competition. Our range reflects this backdrop: we anchor to the 2022 Venice peak, shade upward for the Cardiff work’s subject and stature, but remain below apex Water Lilies pricing and far below Monet’s $110.7m record for Haystacks.