In the traditionally mysterious fashion of the contemporary art world, three digital artworks have been left in front of Sotheby’s for all to see. 

Three screens were found in front of the esteemed auction house.

Photos appear to show three large digital screens, each displaying a different artwork, placed directly outside the front doorway of Sotheby’s York Avenue auction house. The discovery comes just hours before a long-awaited, high-profile auction of one of Monet’s famed “Water Lilies.” This series of paintings are among the most celebrated and sought-after of the artist’s body of work. 

This is the Monet painting’s first auction in a quarter of a century.

The specific canvas going to auction, Coin Le Bassin aux Nymphéas, is a 1918 masterwork of Impressionism by one of the movement’s founders, Claude Monet. It depicts – in the notably abstract and dreamy style of the Impressionists – a colorful corner of the lily pond in his water garden at Giverny. Green, yellow, red, and blue foliage reflected in the lily pond blurs the subject of the work into a haze of saturated color. The November auction marks the first time the painting has been up for sale in almost 25 years. It is expected to sell for $40 million.

The found digital works are variations on Monet’s painting.

The person or group behind this morning’s surprise find was certainly aware of the day’s significance. In the center of each screen is a multicolored variation of Monet’s Coin Le Bassin aux Nymphéas in a layered digital style with its own unique color scheme – brown and purple, red and green, purple and blue. The images are contained in ornate blue, red, and green frames, each affixed before a repeating background of similarly colored flames. A line of text stretches across the top, reading “Crypto Lilies” and “Deafeye Fine Art” in a rock-n-roll-esque font.

As Coin Le Bassin aux Nymphéas is one of Monet’s “Water Lilies,” “Crypto Lilies” can be read as a title for the vibrant series of works, but who is Deafeye Fine Art? What are they trying to say with this – admittedly bold – act?

Who is Deafeye Fine Art?

Are the Crypto Lilies a form of advertising or activism? Demonstration or promotion? It’s not always clear in the art world.

A thorough Google search for Deafeye Fine Art yields nothing that seems connected to the Crypto Lilies. This doesn’t leave us much to go on. The purpose of the works, the people behind them, and the point of leaving them in front of Sotheby’s – where they were undoubtedly removed post-haste – is not immediately apparent. If the intent was simply to generate questions, it seems that Deafye Fine Art has succeeded in its endeavor.

The digitization and variation of the works could suggest some relation to NFTs, but this has yet to be confirmed, and there doesn’t seem to be a place to buy Crypto Lilies online.

The search for Deafeye Fine Art may have gone cold… for now.

While we’re pretty sure this one wasn’t Banksy, we may have to wait for the artist or Deafeye Fine Art to reveal themselves before we know anything for sure. With such a high-profile display, it seems unlikely that this is the last we’ll see of Deafeye Fine Art. Whatever their intentions or aims, it will be interesting to see what kind of crazy story they generate next.

View the Monet masterpiece, Coin Le Bassin aux Nymphéas, at Sothebys.com.