HONG KONG: Hundreds of people queued in Hong Kong on Tuesday to view a Vincent van Gogh painting never publicly exhibited in more than six decades, ahead of a Sotheby's auction in New York where it is expected to fetch about US$180 million.
The Nov 18 auction will test the strength of the high-end art market, in which collectors have continued to compete for scarce trophy works, undeterred by broader economic uncertainty.
Painted in May 1890, "Châtaigniers en fleurs", or "Chestnut Trees in Blossom", is one of the most important works from the Dutch artist's final days in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where he died about two months later, aged 37.
The painting is poised to set a new auction record for a Van Gogh work, said Scott Niichel, of Sotheby's modern and contemporary art department in New York.
"This is a moment of extraordinary optimism, frenetic energy, enthusiasm, passion, and colour in the artist's body of work," he said.
Paintings from Van Gogh's final Auvers-sur-Oise period, just after his release from a psychiatric asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, rarely come to market and the auction will draw the attention of collectors, museums and investors.
"I'd never heard of this painting before, so I wanted to see it with my own eyes," said Li Shanshan, a 50-year-old art lover who travelled about 2-1/2 hours from the southern city of Shenzhen to view the artwork.
The painting, which depicts a massive blossoming chestnut tree with a flowering canopy that dominates the composition, will be sold among part of a collection of 12 long-unseen works, including items by Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet.
Five unveiled at Sotheby's in London in late September included Cezanne's "Arlequin" and Monet’s "Le Jardin des Tuileries".
After Van Gogh's death in July 1890, "Châtaigniers en fleurs" was passed to his brother Theo, and then to the latter's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and their son Vincent Willem.
Subsequently it was owned by German publisher Samuel Fischer, founder of S. Fischer Verlag, before entering the collection of George "Buddy" DeSylva, the American songwriter, film producer and co-founder of Capitol Records.
In 1953, the painting was acquired by collector Harriet Harris-Jonas, whose holdings were considered significant enough that New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art organised visits for patrons to view works in her Fifth Avenue apartment.
The painting was acquired by the Blaquier family from art dealer Wildenstein in 1975.