Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ to Be Sold--at More Than $11 Million

Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece “Sunflowers” will be sold in London on March 30 and is expected to fetch a record price of well above $11 million, Christie’s auction house said today.

“The painting is one of the most important we have ever had to sell. It is popular throughout the world and is a glamorous image of modern art,” said James Roundell, director of Christie’s Impressionist Paintings Department.

The predominantly yellow still life has hung in the British National Gallery in London since 1959, on loan from the family of mining magnate Sir Chester Beatty, who bought it in Paris in 1934 for an undisclosed sum.

It is being sold by executors of its last owner, the late Helen Beatty, widow of Alfred Beatty, the magnate’s son. She died in 1983.

The record price for any painting sold at auction is $11,088,000 paid Dec. 1 in London for Edouard Manet’s oil of workmen in Paris, “La Rue Mosnier aux Paveurs” (Mosnier Street with Road Workers).

Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands in 1853. He died in 1890.