In about a year and a half, Monet painted more than thirty paintings of haystacks. He basically wrote his friend Gustave, “The struggle is real” about following the sun around his French pasture. He exhibited Haystacks as a series for the first time in 1891.
30 years ago, Monet’s “Haystack in the Fog” went up for auction, and went for 2.2 million (about 4.8 today). That’s a solid 1,600 times what it was originally sold for in 1982, when Harris Whittemore snatched it up while on his honeymoon. His father wrote:
“Should you make the purchase, we will have more of the Monets than I think we will care for, but it strikes me we can sell some of those we now have, and thereby greatly improve our collection.”
Righteous, Harris. I’m all about flashing that disposable income on vacation.
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