Bacon triptych set to sizzle British art world: auctioneers, Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

LONDON (AFP) — A three-canvas painting by the figurative artist Francis Bacon is to be auctioned in London next month, where experts estimate it will break the record for the sale of any British or Irish work.

"Triptych 1974-77", which has been in private hands, goes under the hammer on February 6 at Christie's and is expected to reach more than 25 million pounds (34 million euros, 49 million dollars).

In publicity material, Christie's described it as "the most important work by Francis Bacon to ever appear at auction", adding: "The painting is expected to break the current record for any British artist."

Dublin-born Bacon, who died in 1992, created the work on the eve of a major exhibition of his work in New York in 1974 in response to the suicide of his lover, George Dyer, in a Paris hotel three years earlier.

Christie's head of post-war and contemporary art, Pilar Ordovas, said in a statement: "It is a privilege and an honour to be able to work with such a monumental work and present it for sale in London."

The work shows sequential images of dark, ominous umbrellas and Bacon's lover struggling on a near-deserted beach. Many of Bacon's works after this moment were preoccupied with Dyer and the tragic manner of his death.

Bacon currently holds the record price for the auction of a work by a British or Irish artist, with "Study from Innocent X" (1962), which was sold in May last year for 26,581,895 pounds.