Art Market

Francis Bacon painting, estimated at $25 million, will be sold at Christie’s.

Maxwell Rabb
Feb 15, 2024 5:05PM, via Christie’s

Francis Bacon, Landscape near Malabata, Tangier, 1963. Courtesy of Christie’s Images LTD.

Francis Bacon’s 1963 painting Landscape near Malabata, Tangier will headline Christie’s 20th/21st century evening sale in London on March 7th. With an estimate of £15 million to £20 million ($18.8 million to $25 million), the painting is appearing on the market for the first time in nearly four decades. It last sold at auction for $517,000 in 1985, setting a world record for Bacon at that time. The artist’s current auction record is $142.4 million, set by Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), which sold at Christie’s in 2013.

The painting is a tribute to Bacon’s partner Peter Lacy, and is celebrated for expressing love, loss, and longing. The two met at the Colony Room in Soho in 1952 and stayed together until Lacy’s untimely alcohol-related death in 1962. Landscape near Malabata, Tangier is among several paintings Bacon created shortly after Lacy’s death, alongside the triptych Study for Three Heads (1962) and Study for Portrait of P.L. (1962).

Exhibited internationally since its debut in 1963, Landscape near Malabata, Tangier returns to public view at Christie’s New York from February 14th to 19th, before heading to London for the auction preview.

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Maxwell Rabb
Maxwell Rabb is Artsy’s Staff Writer.