$180-M for a painting? Van Gogh could set auction record at Sotheby’s

A Vincent van Gogh landscape expected to fetch more than $180 million could set a new world auction record for a modern painting when it goes under the hammer in New York this month, according to Sotheby’s.

Van Gogh’s Châtaigniers en fleurs, painted in 1890 during the final months of his life, will go under the hammer on November 18.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes a new world record for any modern painting,” Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s Vice Chairman and Head of Impressionist and Modern Art told Reuters on Friday (November 6). “It’s just an extraordinary opportunity.”

The work is among 12 paintings from the collection of Argentine collectors Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and Carlos Pedro Blaquier, many of which have remained out of public view for decades.

“It is the absolute best of the best of Impressionism,” Dawes said.

Another top lot from the collection is Paul Cézanne’s Arlequin, estimated to sell for more than $120 million. Painted between 1888 and 1890, the portrait was included in Cézanne’s landmark 1907 retrospective in Paris, which influenced artists including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse.

Other featured artists include Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Sotheby’s has described the collection as one of the most significant groups of Impressionist and modern art to reach the auction market in recent years.

The Blaquier-Arrieta Collection Evening auction will take place on November 18.

A separate Modern Evening Auction follows the same day, featuring works by Pablo Picasso, René Magritte and Edward Hopper, among others.