The painting L' ami intime by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte (1898-1967) will be auctioned by Christie's in London on 7 March. The value of the work is estimated between 30 and 50 million pounds (35 and 58 million euros). The auction house announced this in a press release on Monday.
The sale is part of Christie's annual auction of Surrealist and Dadaist art and coincides with the centenary of the Surrealist Manifesto written by André Breton in October 1924.
In L' ami intime, an enigmatic man in a bowler hat appears, which Magritte first brought out in Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire from 1926. Gazing out the window at a mountainous landscape and a cloudy sky, he seems unaware of the strange sight with a baguette and a wine glass floating in the air behind him.
The 35.5 by 26 cm work from 1960 belongs to the Gilbert and Lena Kaplan Collection and was last exhibited in Brussels in 1998 at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts. This is the first time since 1980 that the painting has been auctioned.
The work will be presented at Christie's Los Angeles on 5 and 6 February, then at the Rockefeller Center in New York (9-14 February), in Hong Kong from 21-23 February and for auction in London from 1-7 March.
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