The most significant work from Monet's water-lily series, Le bassin aux nympheas, is estimated to fetch as much as $48 million at auction this week. (Lefteris Pitarakis/Associated Press)

A painting by Claude Monet that has been viewed in public only once in the past 80 years is expected to sell for up to $48 million US at auction on Tuesday.

Le Bassin aux Nymphéas, one of four large oil-on-canvas paintings from the French impressionist's water lily series signed and dated by the artist in 1919, will lead the auction at Christie's auction house's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in London.

"There's never been such a picture sold at auction in Europe in the past 20 years," Oliver Camu, Christie's director of impressionist and modern art, said in a press release. "It will be the most important impressionist picture sold in Europe this year."

Unlike most of his later works that remained unfinished in his studio when Monet died, the four water lily paintings were released by the artist during his lifetime. One is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, another was divided and the third is in a private collection.

Le Bassin aux Nymphéas was in the collection of the late Columbus, Ind., philanthropists J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller.

To date, the record price paid for a work by Monet was $41 million US million for Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil.

The auction will also include works by Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse and Jeff Koons.