One of these will be auctioned in March at Christie’s, on the occasion of its “20th / 21st Century” London evening sale.
The British painter created “Triptych 1986-7” between 1986 and 1987, only a few years before his death at the age of 82.
The three panels that constitute it mix images taken from the annals of 20th century history and others referring to his own life.
The canvas on the left was inspired by a newspaper clipping showing US President Woodrow Wilson leaving the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919, and the one on the right by a photograph of Leon Trotsky’s office, taken after his assassination in 1940.
At the centre of the triptych is a figure resembling John Edwards, one of Francis Bacon’s closest friends.
“Francis Bacon is unmistakably one of the greatest painters of the 20th century. He captured everything it is to be human, unafraid to elevate rapturous love or bring to the fore the deep anguish of grief.
“His ability to translate the full gambit of our emotions is perfectly encapsulated in this masterpiece, ‘Triptych 1986-7,'”said Katharine Arnold, head of post-war and contemporary art, Christie’s Europe.
US$142.4 million for a triptych by Bacon
The triptych on sale at Christie’s is one of the few still in private hands.
Francis Bacon produced 28 works of this type between 1962 and 1991, most of which are held in museums such as the Solomon R Guggenheim in New York.
“Triptych 1986-7” has been included in numerous exhibitions over the years, including the recent retrospective on Francis Bacon that Paris’s Centre Pompidou organized in 2020.
However, it has never before appeared on the market. Christie’s estimates it at £35 million to £55 million.
This is a far cry from the US$142.4 million for which another Bacon triptych, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” sold in 2013 at Christie’s in New York.
A sum that ranks it among the ten most expensive paintings ever sold at auction.
Collectors are showing great interest in Francis Bacon’s triptychs. One of them, inspired by Aeschylus’s Oresteia, was sold for US$84.6 million at an auction held in May 2020 at Sotheby’s in London.
Before going under the hammer, “Triptych 1986-7” will be exhibited Feb 10-15 at Rockefeller Center in New York.