Hundreds of people queue outside a Hong Kong gallery to view Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Châtaigniers en fleurs” (“Chestnut Trees in Blossom”), which has not been publicly exhibited for more than six decades. The work goes on display for a limited period ahead of an upcoming auction in New York.
Multiple outlets report the painting is set to be sold by Sotheby’s on November 18, with expectations that the auction could draw record prices. Sotheby’s estimates the sale could fetch around $180 million, placing the event under scrutiny as a test of the high-end art market. The painting is part of a group of works owned by late Argentine collectors Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and Carlos Pedro Blaquier, alongside works by other major artists including Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne. The painting was completed in May 1890, around two months before van Gogh’s death, and is described as one of his most important final works.
