Francis Bacon triptych could fetch $70 million at auction

A three-panel work by Irish-born figurative painter Francis Bacon could sell for $70 million dollars at a May 14th auction in New York.

Triptych 1976 is one of the last important Bacon paintings owned by a private collector.  Most of his work is, happily, already in museum collections by now.

Triptych, 1976, has been in the Moueix family since it was bought from a show in Paris at the Galerie Claude Bernard in 1977, where it was illustrated on the cover of the catalogue. It has figured in all major exhibitions of Bacon’s work, and will be the highlight of Sotheby’s evening sale of contemporary art.

The complex theme of the large-format work includes that of the legend of Prometheus, who is bound to a rock by Zeus and has his liver devoured by an eagle, to which Bacon added elements from Aeschylus’ trilogy The Orestia. Orestes killed his mother, and was punished by being attacked by vultures, shown in the central panel of the work: two solemn faces are portrayed in the side panels, while naked bodies writhe below them.
[Art Newspaper]

Here's a picture of Triptych 1976.

My favorite Bacon triptych is Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. When I worked in advertising, I proposed a Bacon-inspired campaign for an anti-psychotic drug. Luckily, my proposal was rejected.

Comments

[M.]

Triptych 1976 is one of his most static triptych works, I wonder what the real master pieces are worth then (if the price is really paid, given the recent market "troubles").

M.

[aeroman]

Your dreams, made reality.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

You rock, aeroman.

[doyle Saylor]

It's interesting you like Francis Bacon. His good buddy, Lucien Freud is one of my favorites. I've been interested in Bacon for a long time, but not able to like his work. I mean sit and look at it and think about doing something like that. Some of his images sit in the back of my mind as I do my own work. Anyway I find it a welcome tidbit you like Bacon.

[Cass]

I have a poster of "Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X" hanging in my workspace. Truly a painter for his time, and I'm afraid probably for ours as well.