NEWLY DISCOVERED
PAINTINGS BY MONET

In the spring of 2019, a painting of waterlilies was discovered under a Monet painting of wisterias. Wisterias is thought to have been painted between 1917 and 1920. The painting of waterlilies underneath Wisterias was discovered by Gemeentemuseum in the Hague, the Netherlands, while x-raying Monet's Wisterias painting.

In 2018, Water Lilies: Reflections of Willows, a Monet painting was found. It had been stored at the Louvre Museum during World War II. It was owned by Japanese collector Kojiro Matsukata, who bought it directly from Monet in 1921. Matsukata'sheirs requested the painting to be returned after World War II, but the Louvre could not find it. The painting is damaged and is being repaired by the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, now owner of Water Lilies: Reflections of Willows.

In 2017, a Monet painting was discovered by an art-history professor at University of Edinburgh. He was researching what was thought to be a missing Monet on the web. He found it had been sold by an art dealer in New Orleans, but it was still listed as missing or lost in the Monet scholarly literature. The Edinburgh art historian found the collector who bought it in New Orleans, and Effet de brouillard was exhibited at the National Gallery in London.

In 2013, a painting from the Waterloo Bridge series of paintings by Monet was found among the objects discovered in the Austrian home of Cornelius Gurlitt after Gurlitt's death. Gurlitt's father, Hildebrandt, was a German art dealer who sold illegally acquired works of art for Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. Monet's Waterloo Bridge, Grey Weatherisamong about onethousand works from the Gurlitt horde which will be displayed by the Kunstmuseum, Bern, Switzerland.

Monet created a series of thirty-seven paintings featuring the Charing Cross Bridge in London. The paintings recorded Monet's observations of the bridge at different times of the day in order to capture the ever-changing atmospheric effects. The Charing Cross Bridge, London, that hung in the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, was stolen during a larger theft in October 2012. A group of thieves were convicted of the crime and claim to have destroyed some of the paintings , including the Monet. One of the thieves said he burned the Monet in his mother's stove. Pigment was detected upon examination of the stove, but not enough to conclusively assert the thief's claim. The painting is still considered missing and the investigation remains active.

Monet's Waterloo Bridge, London, 1901, was also part of the RotterdamKunsthalart theft and is also presumed to have been destroyed or still missing along with the Charing Cross Bridge, London, mentioned above.

Claude Monet's painting Effet de brouillard, painted in 1872, fell off the map in 1892, but it was successfully traced and brought back into public view by Richard Thomson, a professor of fine art at the University of Edinburgh. Thomson was curator of the exhibition entitled Monet & Architectureat the National Gallery and, having seen the painting reproduced in various catalogues of Monet's art, wanted to include it in the exhibition. Thomson was able to locate the painting through online auction records and learned that the painting had passed through several private owners since its participation in Thomson's exhibition.

Perhaps sensing the impending upheaval that would be caused by World War II, the Japanese art collector Kojiro Matsukata decided to send the work, Water Lilies: Reflection of Willows, among others, to Paris in an effort to preserve them. When the war was over, however, the paintings were nowhere to be found until 2016 when a French researcher discovered Water Lilies: Reflection of Willowsin storage at the Louvre. The painting, thought to have been purchased by Matsukata from Monet himself, was in a state of horrendous disrepair and went under extensive restoration efforts. Matsukata, who died in 1950, had acquired an enormous collection of art that also fared very badly despite being sent abroad for safekeeping. He also was forced to sell much of his collection when his business suffered losses in the late 1920s. His dream of opening a modern art museum in Tokyo was not to be, but there are hopes to display this lost Monet in the near future.

Poppies near Argenteuil from 1879, by Claude Monet was one of four paintings stolen in broad daylight from the E. G. Buehrle Collection in Zurich in 2008. All the paintings, including the Monet, were recovered.

Claude Monet's Impression Sunrise from 1872 was stolen from the Musée Marmottan in 1985 but was recovered and returned to the Museum in 1990. It was put back on display in 1991.

A Pepperdine University student stole an unspecified Monet painting worth two million dollars from a Hollywood home in 1993. The painting reportedly depicts a Belgian canal scene and was recovered shortly thereafter when the thief attempted to sell it.