A 50-year-old Andy Warhol painting is going head-to-head with a Francis Bacon triptych in New York's auction houses this week to reach more than $80 million
New sales records may be broken this week in New York by an Andy Warhol painting and a triptych by Francis Bacon, the late British artist, both striving to get the highest bid.
Warhol's Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), painted in 1963, is expected to reach between $60 - 80 million (£37 - 50 million) at Sotheby's on Wednesday.
However, it may be beaten to being sale of the week by Bacon's portraits of his friend and rival, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which is being auctioned at Christie's on Tuesday.
The triptych has the highest-ever estimate for a work of art at auction: $85 million (£53 million), topping the $80 million estimate that Edvard Munch's The Scream was listed at in May 2012. It sold for $120 million.
The Warhol piece, which shows a twisted body inside a mangled car, is and one of four that the artist produced when he was 35. It is, however, the last one of its size still owned privately.
Bacon's triptych is one of two that the artist painted of Freud, also a popular artist, and the other's whereabouts are unknown.
After being sold separately by a dealer in the Seventies, the three panels were bought from collectors in Paris, Japan and Rome.
Currently, Roman Abramovich holds the record for paying the most for a Bacon triptych, after paying $86.2 million in 2008.
Andreas Rumbler, auctioneer of the sales and deputy chairman of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie's in New York, explained the appeal of Warhol despite the fact he was so prolific: "With Warhol, although his output is so large, his other pieces act as comparables for potential buyers.
Buyers know they can bank on a Warhol because they do well, despite not being particularly rare."
