Van Gogh work could bring over $40M at NYC auction
By Associated Press
May 5, 2015 9:58 AM CDT
CORRECTS NAME OF PAINTING TO "THE ALLEE OF ALYSCAMPS, INSTEAD OF THE ALLEE OF ALYSCAMPSIS - This undated photo provided by Sotheby's shows the Vincent van Gogh painting, "The Allee of Alyscamps" that the auction house predicts will fetch more than $40 million when it is auctioned in New York on Tuesday,...   (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — A painting Vincent van Gogh created while briefly working side-by-side with his friend Paul Gauguin in the south of France could sell for more than $40 million at auction Tuesday evening.

"The Allee of Alyscamps" is being offered at Sotheby's impressionist and modern art sale. The autumnal scene was painted in 1888 during a two-month period when van Gogh and Gauguin worked together in Arles, France.

The auction record for a van Gogh, who died in 1890, is $82.5 million.

"To have a canvas from Arles by that very self-taught artist at the height of his work marks the sale as momentous," said Clifford Edwards, a van Gogh expert and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The sale also features six paintings spanning four decades of Claude Monet's career for an estimated $78 million. The highlight is "Water Lilies," a 1905 version of the artist's beloved pond and gardens at his home in Giverny, France. It's estimated to fetch $30 million to $45 million.

Monet's 1908 painting of Venice with a view of the Palazzo Ducale on the Grand Canal could fetch $15 million to $20 million. It was confiscated by the Nazis from the noted collector Jakob Goldschmidt and reclaimed by his son in 1960. It descended to the grandson who died in 2014.

The current auction record for a work by Monet is his 1919 "Water Lily Pond," which sold for $80.5 million in 2008.

Sotheby's also is offering works from two prominent single-owner collections.

There are two works from Hollywood film moguls Samuel Goldwyn and his son.

"Woman With a Chignon in an Armchair," a portrait of Pablo Picasso's lover Francoise Gilot, is estimated to bring $12 million to $18 million. It depicts her in an embroidered jacket Picasso purchased for her in Poland while she was pregnant with their child.

Henri Matisse's "Anemones and Pomegranates" was purchased by the elder Goldwyn two years after it was painted in 1948. It's estimated at $5 million to $7 million.

About two dozen other works from the collection will be offered in a series of sales later in May, June and October.

Samuel Goldwyn Jr. died in January; his father died in 1974.

The other collection on Tuesday evening belonged to Jerome Stone, a Chicago businessman and founder of the Alzheimer's Association who died in January. It includes Fernand Leger's "The Blue Wheel, Definitive State" with a pre-sale estimate of $8 million to $12 million. Other artists in collection include Joan Miro, Marc Chagall and Alberto Giacometti.

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