Bacon Could Fetch £35 Million

A painting by Dublin born British artist Francis Bacon is tipped to fetch a record 70 million dollars when it goes under the hammer in New York in May, according to media reports quoting Sotheby's Tuesday. "Triptych, 1976," described by the art auction house as the most important Bacon in private hands and rich in symbolism drawing on ancient Greek mythology, is to go on sale on May 14. The triptych was the centrepiece of Bacon's art show at the Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris in 1977, considered the artist's most important display of new art works of the 1970s. The painting's three panels show Bacon's lucid imagination with allegorical depictions drawing on the myth of Prometheus, who, according to legend, was bound to a rock where his liver was repeatedly devoured by an eagle. The work is said to be symbolic of the artist's inner demons. The current record for a Bacon was set last year in New York, when his "Study from Innocent X" (1962) sold for 52.7 million -- at the time also setting a record for any work by a British or Irish artist sold at auction. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art