Hundreds of people queued last week outside a Hong Kong gallery to see a Vincent van Gogh painting on public display for the first time in six decades.
The Dutch artist's "Chataigniers en fleurs" ("Chestnut Trees in Blossom") was exhibited ahead of its November 18 auction in New York, where Sotheby's expects it to fetch around $180 million.
It is among 12 works owned by late Argentine collectors Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and Carlos Pedro Blaquier. Paintings by Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cezanne will also go under the hammer.
Completed in 1890, during the last two months of van Gogh's life, the painting portrays a blossoming chestnut tree with a solitary man walking past three women in Japanese attire.
"It's one of the last, most expressive and hopeful works by van Gogh in this final phase of his career," Scott Niichel, a vice chairman at Sotheby's, told AFP.
It is among approximately 70 works van Gogh created after leaving the psychiatric asylum of Saint-Remy, where he painted "The Starry Night". During this period, he averaged around one work a day.
Niichel highlighted the thickness of the paint layers, saying the artist was "racing to put it to canvas".
"Orchard with Cypresses" holds the auction record for a van Gogh, selling for $117.2 million in 2022.
Asked who might buy the painting, Niichel said "anything is possible".
"Our revealing in Hong Kong suggests that Asia is certainly a possibility," he said of the auction in November. — AFP
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