A Fernand Léger Cubist painting being sold by Madonna for charity is among £162 million worth of art that went on public show at Sotheby’s today.
Other highlights of forthcoming sales in New York that can be viewed at Sotheby’s London headquarters this weekend include a still life by Paul Cezanne described as one of his most perfect and never seen in Britain before.
Madonna is selling Trois femmes à la table rouge for the Ray of Light Foundation, which supports education around the world, particularly for girls. The work is expected to make up to £4.5 million.
The Cezanne picture Les Pommes has an upper estimate of nearly £23 million. It comes from the collection of Alex Lewyt, a vacuum cleaner inventor, and his wife Elisabeth and proceeds will go to a foundation set up in their name. The sale includes small-scale casts of some of the most famous works by Auguste Rodin including Le Penseur (The Thinker) and Le Baiser (The Kiss) which are particularly important because they were made in his lifetime and not cast later.
A photo-realist work, Domplatz, Mailand, by 81-year-old German Gerhard Richter, the world’s most expensive living artist, could fetch as much as £26 million. There are similar expectations for a Francis Bacon portrait of Peter Lacy. The paintings can be seen at Sotheby’s in New Bond Street until Tuesday.
