20 pieces from Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation in Monaco, to be auctioned soon in Paris

The sale will take place on 24 October at Sotheby’s, the prestigious auction house.

The Majid Boustany Foundation in Monaco is organising an auction of twenty exceptional pieces on 24 October to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of the British painter Francis Bacon, The sale will take place at Sotheby’s in Paris.

Called “Inside the World of Francis Bacon”, the sale will include a number of different items, including a major 1949 painting, “Figure Crouching”, estimated at 3.5-5 million euros.

Bidders will also be vying to acquire a very rare rug, signed by the artist in 1929 (estimated at 90,000 – 140,000 euros), two magnificent works on paper, or historical objects, such as a plate that the painter used as a palette (estimated at 20,000 – 30,000 euros), as well as other pieces from Bacon’s Parisian studio.

The collection also includes works by friends of Francis Bacon, such as painters Graham Sutherland, Louis Le Brocquy and Roy de Maistre, as well as an original letter from Francis Bacon to the writer Michel Leiris and portraits of the artist by photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Don McCullin and Peter Beard. All proceeds from the sales will be donated to the Foundation.

SEE ALSO: Majid Boustany: “When Bacon came into my life, I was fascinated by the unique giant”

The painter will be honoured on Saturday 8 October, at the Mouans-Sartoux Book Festival. The film Francis Bacon / Ernest Pignon-Ernest : Échanges, by Alain Amiel and produced by the Foundation, will be screened free of charge at 5.15 pm at the La Strada cinema.

The film deals with the written correspondence between the two artists, who never met. Francis Bacon is said to have asked Ernest Pignon-Ernest, an emblematic figure of the Mouans-Sartoux Book Festival, to send him several enlargements of his drawings. The screening will be followed by a discussion between the artist from Nice, the film’s director, and the writer Gérard Mordillat.