Christie's, Sotheby's to Sell $49 Million Bacon Works in London, Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

According to Bloomberg.com, Christie's International and Sotheby's -- whose sale totals for last year were neck-and-neck at around $6 billion each -- will offer Francis Bacon works estimated at about $49 million each at the February contemporary-art sales in London.

Two and a half weeks after Sotheby's said it would include Bacon's 1969 ``Study of a Nude With Figure in a Mirror'' in its Feb. 27 auction, Christie's said that it will offer ``Triptych 1974-77'' on Feb. 6. For the first time, London's two major auction houses will hold their main February contemporary sales during different weeks.

Both Bacon consignments carry estimates in the region of 25 million pounds ($49 million). The current record for the Irish- born artist, who died in 1992, is $52.7 million, with auction- house commissions, paid in May 2007 at Sotheby's New York for the 1962 canvas, ``Study From Innocent X.''

```Triptych 1974-1977' is the most important triptych by Francis Bacon to appear ever at auction,'' said Pilar Ordovas, Christie's Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art in London.

The trio of canvases, which, unusually for the artist, show figures on an open beach, was the last in a series of tributes to the artist's lover George Dyer. The work was exhibited at a Bacon retrospective at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1974. Christie's said ``Triptych 1974-77'' had been entered by an anonymous collector, and had never been offered at auction before.

`Luminosity'

``This is one of the great Bacon triptychs,'' said London- based private dealer Ivor Braka, who said he has handled over 40 paintings by the artist during his career. ``It's got a luminosity that's going to appeal to the maximum number of people. It ticks all the right boxes.''

According to the saleroom price database Artnet, the last large-scale Bacon triptych sold at auction was the 1984 work ``Three Studies for John Edwards,'' which fetched 3.1 million pounds at Christie's, London in February 2001.

Since June 2005, 12 single-canvas paintings by Bacon have sold at auction for prices of $9 million or more, according to Artnet.

Braka said recent museum exhibitions had enhanced Bacon's reputation. ``No British artist has had more museum shows than Bacon. There has been a tremendous concentration of institutional interest,'' he said.

A Francis Bacon retrospective is scheduled to open at Tate Britain in London on Oct. 1.

(Scott Reyburn writes about the art market for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)