Christie’s – Going Once

This week’s stories

Portrait of Man with Glasses III — a turning point in Francis Bacon’s career?

The artist had been devastated by the death of his former lover, Peter Lacy, in 1962. Yet this painting, made a year later, manifests a fresh embrace of colour wedded to a new sense of formal freedom

The German Expressionists: how the likes of Marc, Kirchner and Macke strove to project their inner psyches onto canvas

Glow up — inspired lighting to live by from design luminaries including Gaetano Pesce, Emile Gallé and René Lalique

Words to the wise — seven artists who use text in their work, from Barbara Kruger to On Kawara and Tracey Emin

Kanpai! How a century of innovation has led Japanese whiskies to rival the desirability of Scotland’s ‘water of life’

Editor’s picks

Egon Schiele’s figure studies are notable for contorted poses that convey a sense of restless energy, and Boy in a Sailor Suit is no exception. Executed in a delicate mix of gouache, watercolour and coloured pencil, the 1914 portrait depicts an adolescent whose twisting posture suggests that he might run off at any moment

Estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000

5‌ March‌, London

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At first glance, the 1994 work Treppenhaus (Staircase) looks like a picture of the inside of an austere building. But in fact, following the usual practice of the German conceptual artist Thomas Demand, it is a photograph of a life-size model he built out of cardboard — in this case, a recreation from memory of a stairway in the school he attended as a child

Estimate: £12,000-18,000

until 12‌ March‌, Online

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This ‘Leopardo’ chest of drawers, dating from around‌ 1960‌, is by the Milanese designer Piero Fornasetti, who had come up with the original model a few years earlier for the living room of his family home. It is an ingenious design, with the curved front giving the leopard an almost alarming sense of volume and movement as it slips silently through the golden foliage

Estimate: $12,000-18,000

until 11‌ March‌, Online

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The exceptional skill of Henri Fantin-Latour as a painter of flowers and fruit is on show in this still life from 1878. Alongside the pink and white roses is a bowl of strawberries rendered with such realism — in the play of light on their surface and the variation in colour from pale green to deepest red — that the viewer is tempted to reach out and take one

Estimate: £60,000-80,000

7‌ March‌, London

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BROWSE ALL

What’s on

Touring exhibition | Shanghai and Beijing

Hong Kong Spring Auction highlights in Shanghai (4-5‌ March‌) and Beijing (8-9‌ March‌)

Live for bidding | Hong Kong, Online

Fine and Rare Spirits Online: Featuring an Exquisite Scotch and Japanese Whisky Collection, until 11‌ March‌

Live for browsing | London

Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper Sale, 7‌ March‌

Spotlight on

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Works by Peter Doig, Jadé Fadojutimi, Caroline Walker and more, donated to help build a children’s cancer centre at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital

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David Hockney’s Between Kilham and Langtoft and Woldgate Woods, Winter, 2010, a ‘prayer of thanks to nature and the life force’ of his native Yorkshire

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The women of Surrealism — we trace their contribution to the movement, and explore why many of them found life in Mexico so nourishing to their art

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Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Portrait of Man with Glasses III, 1963. Oil and silver sand on canvas. 14⅛ x 12⅛ in (36 x 30.7 cm). Estimate: £6,000,000-9,000,000. Offered in the 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale on 5‌ March‌ 2025 at Christie’s in London. Artwork: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS 2025 // Tracey Emin (b. 1963), This Is Another Place, 2007. Soft pink neon. This work is number two from an edition of three plus two artist’s proofs. 38¼ x 83⅛ in (97 x 211 cm). Estimate: £40,000-60,000. Offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on 6‌ March‌ 2025 at Christie’s in London. Artwork: © Tracey Emin, DACS 2025 // Caroline Walker (b. 1982), Study for Amusements, 2024 (detail). Oil on paper. 17¼ x 24⅜ in (43.7 x 62 cm). Estimate: £20,000-30,000. Offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on 6‌ March‌ at Christie’s in London as part of BUILD IT, BEAT IT, a charitable arts initiative in partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity (GOSH Charity). 100 per cent of the hammer price for these lots will be paid to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (charity number #1160024‌), and GOSH has indicated that funds will go towards building the Children’s Cancer Centre at GOSH. Christie’s shall donate 50 per cent of the buyer’s premium for all lots sold to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. In the event that the needs of the hospital or patients change, GOSH reserves the right to redirect funds for use against the hospital’s most urgent needs

Portrait of Man with Glasses III — a turning point in Francis Bacon’s career?

The German Expressionists: how the likes of Marc, Kirchner and Macke strove to project their inner psyches onto canvas

Glow up — inspired lighting to live by from design luminaries including Gaetano Pesce, Emile Gallé and René Lalique

Words to the wise — seven artists who use text in their work, from Barbara Kruger to On Kawara and Tracey Emin

Kanpai! How a century of innovation has led Japanese whiskies to rival the desirability of Scotland’s ‘water of life’

Editor’s picks

What’s on

Spotlight on

Private Sales: Our best kept secret

The Amelia Island Auctions, Florida

Private Sales:
Our best kept secret