Christie's sold 26 works from the collection of the legendary dealer Paul Durand-Ruel for €41.6 million including buyer's fees at its dedicated evening sale in Paris on 22 October, landing near the top of the €30–43 million pre-sale estimate. The top lot was Claude Monet's 'Bord des falaises à Pourville' (1882), an 1882 Normandy coast scene that had not appeared on the market since Durand-Ruel bought it in the late 19th century and passed it down through five generations; it sold for €12.7 million against an €11–15 million estimate.

The evening carried the weight of Impressionist history. Durand-Ruel was the dealer who kept Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley afloat when the market rejected them — Monet later said that without him the Impressionists would have starved. The sale's strength reflected that romance: Pierre-Auguste Renoir's 'Jeunes filles au bord de la mer' made €5.8 million, Monet's 'Trois pots de tulipes' (1885) sold for €3.1 million, and Pablo Picasso's 'Nature morte au gruyère' (1944) fetched €3 million. Works by Pissarro, Sisley and Boudin, all artists Durand-Ruel championed, filled out the sale alongside pieces by artists supported by the dealer's descendants.

Thursday's dedicated auction covered the collection's star lots; the remainder of the 62-work family trove goes under the hammer in the Art Moderne day sale on 23 October. Coming the same evening as Sotheby's record-breaking Schlumberger sale across town, the €41.6 million total confirms Paris's October week as the city's most valuable auction week on record, with French Impressionist provenance — hidden in private hands for a century or more — proving the market's most reliable engine.