One of Claude Monet’s water lily paintings, titled “Le Basin Aux Nympheas,” created in the early 1900s, was sold at Christie’s in London on Tuesday, breaking the auction record for the French impressionist artist.

“Le Bassin Aux Nympheas” or “Water Lily Pond,” sold for $80,451,178 Tuesday night in London at Christie’s impressionist and modern art auction. The painting is part of a collection of large-scale paintings of water lily paintings that Monet put up for sale during his lifetime.

The paintings were signed and dated by the artist in 1919. Tuesday’s sale has broken the auction record for the French impressionist artist, Christie’s said. The previous record for a Monet was set last month at Christie’s in New York, when “The Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil” was acquired for $41.4 million.

“Le Bassin Aux Nympheas” had been expected to fetch between $36 million and $47 million. The happy bidder who won the auction is Tania Buckrell Pos of Arts & Management International, a London company, who bought the painting on behalf of an unknown client, reports the New York Times.

The remaining three paintings in the collection are scattered as follows: one is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; another is in a private collection, after being sold at Christie’s in New York in 1992 for $12.1 million; while a third was cut in two before World War II.

“Le Bassin Aux Nympheas” has also become the most expensive artwork ever sold in Europe by Christie’s. It has been seen in public just once in the past 80 years.

Other artists’ work also reached record prices, such as Edgar Degas’s pastel of ballet dancers “Danseuse a la Barre” which went for $26.3m and Natalia Goncharova’s “Les Fleurs” that sold for $10.8m.