Art Market: Bacon nude expected to exceed 1m pounds

THE FIRST major painting by Francis Bacon to come up for auction since the modern master's death in April will be offered by Sotheby's in December.

The estimate of more than pounds 1m for Study of a Nude with Figure in a Mirror takes into account both the way that prices for a major artist's work are affected after his or her death and the slump in the art market. In 1990 a comparable picture sold for dollars 3.3m in New York.

The painting, which depicts a reclining naked woman and one of Bacon's 'spectator' figures, is from a group he painted in the Sixties. It has been consigned by a private European collector.

Christie's has broken the record price for any 20th century photograph sold at auction. Girl with Leica, an image by Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956), a central figure in the artistic growth of post-revolutionary Russia, sold for pounds 115,500. Its estimate was pounds 12,000 to pounds 16,000. It was bought by a German collector, who broke the previous record, pounds 92,905 for a work by Tina Modotti.

Few Rodchenko images come on to the market and Christie's 30 Rodchenko prints sent bids well over estimates.

(Photograph omitted)