Le Bassin Aux Nympheas was offered at an auction in late 2002, but the painting did not sell.

A Claude Monet painting is expected to set a record price for the artist's work at an auction in London.

The painting, Le Bassin Aux Nympheas - set to go under the hammer by auction house Christie's on June 24 (local time) - is predicted to fetch between £18 million ($37.3million) and £24 million ($49.6 million).

The work - part of private art collection assembled some 40 years ago - is from Monet's water lily series - an extremely rare series of four large-scale pictures signed and dated by the artist in 1919.

Other major impressionist and modern works at the sale are by Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and Camille Pissarro.

"This auction will present one of the finest selections of Impressionist and Modern paintings ever seen on the European art market," said Christie's Oliver Camu.

Le Bassin Aux Nympheas was offered at an auction in late 2002, but the reserve was not met and the painting went unsold.

Monet released the waterlily series during his lifetime, unlike most of his later works which remained unfinished in the studio when he died.