Claude Monet’s “Prairie, ciel nuageux” showed a flower-filled field underneath a bright but cloudy sky, its light shimmering through a stand of trees.
There are haystacks in the distance, a hint of the celebrated haystack series the French impressionist painter would begin just a few weeks later as the summer of 1890 turned to fall.
The painting “represents the pinnacle of Monet’s Impressionist style,” according to a catalogue listing from the auction house Sotheby’s, which sold it to a telephone bidder in 2019 for just under $6 million. “The vibrant landscape exemplifies the artist’s lifelong commitment to painting en plein air and the constant exploration of the effects of weather conditions and light on the setting.
But not any longer.
“Prairie, ciel nuageux” was destroyed in a 2022 house fire in Pentwater Township on the shore of Lake Michigan, according to documents filed in a legal dispute between the paintings’ owners and their insurance company.
Two other paintings by Monet were apparently destroyed alongside it: “La Route de Vetheuil,” which showed the road leading into the village along the Seine where he lived in 1880, and “Falaise a Varengeville,” an 1882 work depicting the jagged cliffs along the Normandy coast.
Though Monet completed more than 2,100 paintings, each one is “important to the whole and to a sense of Monet’s trajectory, his efforts to really rethink his work,” said Paul Tucker, an art historian who has written several books on Monet and curated exhibits of the artist’s work at museums around the world.
“I find it personally painful and intellectually, very distressing,” he said.
Together, the three paintings were valued at more than $45 million.
The identities of the paintings were concealed behind pseudonyms in a lawsuit filed last year by one of the paintings’ owners, Julie Halbower, alleging that Hiscox Syndicate 33 of Lloyd’s of London had not reimbursed the Halbower Legacy Trust for the full value of three paintings destroyed in the fire and not paid anything at all for two additional artworks.
But subsequent filings in the case offer additional details.
One of the issues in dispute is whether two of the burned paintings had been added to the insurance policy. An email from Tonya Van Roy, president of Pegasus Insurance Services, which was part of an exhibit filed in the case, clearly refers to “Prairie, ciel nuageux” as one of those paintings.
The exhibit also include an email from Julie Halbower’s husband, Matthew Halbower, who is the founder and CEO of Pentwater Capital Management, a private investment firm that manages nearly $6 billion in investments, according to a recent SEC application.
In the 2021 email, Matthew Halbower includes a list of artworks to be included in the insurance policy. Two paintings correspond to pseudonyms used for artworks in earlier filings and their listed values are close to the amounts Hiscox paid in reimbursements.
“La Route de Vetheuil” seems to match the painting referred to in the original complaint as “Path.” In his email, Halbower referred to it as “Monet Path” and lists its value as $14 million. Hiscox would pay the Halbowers $16 million for the painting after it burned.
“Falaise a Varengeville” appears to be the painting the complaint calls “Cliff.” Halbower refers to it as “Monet Cliff” in his mail and lists its value as $14 million. Hiscox paid out $15 million after it was destroyed.
A fourth painting, referred to in the original complaint as “Castle” and in an affidavit from Van Roy as “Ruines,” appears to be “Ruines de Passy-les-Tours, effet de soleil” by the French avant-garde painter Francis Picabia.
Halbower listed its value at $325,000. Hiscox paid $333,315 in response to the insurance claim.
None of those paintings appears on a list of artworks that survived the fire.
Both Halbower’s complaint and a counterclaim filed by Hiscox are still in litigation.
Monet often returned to same subjects and scenes, Tucker said, a habit exemplified by the roughly 250 paintings of water lilies in his garden at Giverny that he completed over the final decades of his life.
One of those paintings was also lost in a fire. When the Museum of Modern Art in New York burned in 1957, firefighters accidentally destroyed it as they broke into the building.
The fact that there are other, similar works by Monets doesn’t make the loss less tragic, Tucker said.
“Every picture is itself unique,” he said, each one “utterly themselves.”
The cause of the fire at the Halbowers’ Pentwater Township home is still undetermined, according to Pentwater Fire Chief Jonathan Hughart.
Matthew Halbower and Hiscox Syndicate 33 did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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