Monet's glasses sold for $50,000

A pair of spectacles that belonged to impressionist Claude Monet have fetched more than $50,000 at auction in Hong Kong.

The spectacles were part of a collection of paintings, sketches and prints that sold for nearly $11million at Christie's in Hong Kong.

The auction house gave no details about the identity of the buyer, from Asia, of the spectacles - which had an estimate of between $1,000 and $1,500 - but were eventually sold for $51,457.

The glasses were the surprise stars of the sale, which also saw The Cliffs of Petites-Dalles, an oil on canvas painted in 1884, go under the hammer for $4.6million, and Trois Trees at Giverny, which was sold for $4million.

One of the Impressionist master's early works - pencil sketches of sailboats on paper when he was a teenager - sold for $136,685 on Sunday.

The painting Meule, sold in New York last year for $81.4m, a record for the French master, Christie's said at the time breaking a previous record set in June 2008, when Water Lilies took $80.4m in London.

Read more: Monet garden Unesco bid