During the summer of 2026, auction house Sotheby’s will unveil the Lewis Collection, a collection of modern artworks in London estimated to total about 200 million pounds, or about 231 million euros. It is the most valuable collection by a single private individual ever auctioned in Europe. The sale will bring together works by some of the best-known protagonists of European figurative painting between the late 19th and 20th centuries. The initiative includes an exhibition phase in New York followed by the London auction.
A selection of the works was exhibited between May 2 and May 18, 2026, at the Breuer Building in New York, Sotheby’s historic headquarters in the U.S. city, and now the journey continues with a move to London, where the collection will be presented to the public June 10-23 in an exhibition set up at the auction house’s London headquarters. The exhibition will bring together a nucleus of works considered among the most representative of modern figurative painting.
The final phase of the transaction, however, will take place with two separate dates. The sale is scheduled for June 24, 2026, with the auction titled Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection, and for June 25 with Modern Day Auction including Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection, at the New Bond Street location in London.
The core of the Lewis Collection includes works by central figures in European modern art. Among the artists represented are Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Amedeo Modigliani, Francis Bacon, Gustave Caillebotte, Lucian Freud, Chaïm Soutine, and Pablo Picasso. The selection also includes works by Henri Matisse, René Magritte, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Marc Chagall, delineating a path through different declinations of figuration between the 19th and 20th centuries.
Among the most notable lots are Petite danseuse de quatorze ans by Edgar Degas, with an estimate between £18 million and £25 million (approximately €21-29 million). First shown at the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition in 1881, the wax sculpture aroused strong interest and immediate controversy at the time, becoming one of the artist’s best-known works and a landmark of modern sculpture today. Its realistic rendering and almost uncanny presence exerted a major influence on late 19th-century and contemporary developments in sculpture, leading to works such as those by Picasso, Brancusi, and Louise Bourgeois, who reinterpreted three-dimensionality in innovative ways.
Among the works for sale is Gustav Klimt ’s 1902 painting Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsőványi), estimated at between £20 million and £30 million, or about 23 to 34 million euros. The work, linked to the context of turn-of-the-century Vienna, represents one of the rare occasions when a full-length portrait of the artist appears on the market. Its provenance is complex and spans the historical events of the family portrayed, with passages related to confiscations during the National Socialist period and subsequent agreements between heirs and institutions involved in the reconstruction of the estate.
By Francis Bacon is Two Studies for Self-Portrait from 1977, estimated at between 8 and 12 million pounds (about 9 to 14 million euros). The painting fits into the phase following George Dyer’s death and reflects a season of intense self-reflexive production. The work presents a double image of the artist, constructed through deformations and color fades that accentuate the psychological dimension of the subject.
It is followed by René Magritte’s La Belle promenade, estimated at between £3 million and £4 million (about €3.5-4.6 million), a work in which the figure of a man with a bowler hat becomes a vehicle for a reflection on the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Part of a series begun in the 1960s, in which the silhouette of the figure is filled with seemingly disconnected images such as skies or landscapes, the work juxtaposes everyday elements and incongruous contexts to question the meanings habitually attributed to images.
Also featured is Nu assis au collier by Amedeo Modigliani, with estimate on request. Made at a time of intense creativity in Paris’s Montparnasse district during the years of World War I, the painting belongs to the core of the artist’s celebrated nudes, among the works that have defined his critical fortunes. The female figure, treated according to a now fully mature formal synthesis, is part of a quest that, while taking up the tradition of the Western nude, profoundly reworks its codes, contributing to a new definition of the subject in the 20th century. The production of these works marked a decisive shift in the reception of Modigliani’s work, situated between continuity with tradition and modernist rupture.
Next comesSleeping by the Lion Carpet by Lucian Freud, estimated at between £25 million and £35 million (approximately 29-41 million euros). Considered among the most important achievements of the artist’s late production, the work represents the most accomplished outcome of his long investigation of the nude. The painting depicts Sue Tilley, among Freud’s best-known models, and is characterized by an extremely analytical rendering of the human figure, built through close observation and meticulous definition of body surfaces. Made over a period of about nine months between 1995 and 1996, the work is part of the last phase of the series of large nudes dedicated to the same model, considered among the most important achievements of his production.
Also included is Max Beckmann’s Stillleben mit Grammophon und Schwertlilien, made in 1924 and referring to the artist’s formative phase in Frankfurt, with an estimate of between £3 million and £4 million (about €3.5-4.6 million). The work is situated within the production of allegorical still lifes developed by the artist from the 1920s, in a transitional phase of his research. The painting reflects the interest in a symbolic construction of the image typical of the Neue Sachlichkeit, in which compositional rigor and layering of personal and mythological references contribute to the definition of the modern condition in the postwar period.
Also featured is Pablo Picasso’s Buste de femme, dated 1938, with an estimate of between 12 and 18 million pounds (about 13.9-20.9 million euros). The portrait, dedicated to Dora Maar, is part of the long cycle of works the artist made in the 1930s and 1940s around the figure of his companion. The work reflects the complexity of their relationship and the progressive transformation of the portrait into a field of formal and psychological experimentation. At this stage Dora Maar becomes one of the main references in Picasso’s pictorial research, in an ongoing process of reinterpreting the female image.
Gustave Caillebotte’sPortrait de Paul Hugot follows, between 3.5 and 4.5 million pounds (about 4-5 million euros). The painting, shown at the Fifth Impressionist exhibition in 1880, documents the relationship between the artist and one of his main supporters, as well as highlighting the rigorous compositional approach and spatial construction typical of his output. Alsoin the selection is Portrait de garçon en bleu by Chaïm Soutine, datable to around 1928, estimated at between £1.8 million and £2.5 million (about €2.1-2.9 million). The work comes from the Castaing collection and is linked to the network of relationships that supported the artist in Paris in the 1930s.
Also featured is Pablo Picasso’s Portrait de Dora Maar (Dora Maar à la coiffe) from 1936, with an estimate of between £600,000 and £800,000 (approx. €695,000-925,000), made on paper, placed in the period of the relationship between the artist and the French photographer and intellectual.
Kazimir Malevich’s Head of a Peasant, a gouache from 1911, also figures, with an estimate between £1.5 million and £2 million (about €1.7-2.3 million). The work belongs to the artist’s primitivist phase and is part of the cycle devoted to Russian peasant life, one of the initial moments of his research and a key transition to the early 20th-century avant-garde. The work reflects a concise and simplified representation of the figure, developed in a context of Russia’s strong cultural transformation.
It also follows a drawing by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Midinettes avec leurs cartons poursuivies par un monsieur, with an estimate of between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds (about 347,000-463,000 euros). The work restores a scene of urban Parisian life in the late 19th century, focusing on young female workers in the fashion industry and the rhythms of the modern city. It is part of the artist’s production devoted to contemporary Paris and the social dynamics of changing urban life.
Frank Auerbach’s J.Y.M. Seated, made between 1991 and 1992, closes the selection, with an estimate of between £400,000 and 600,000 (about 463,000-695,000 euros). The work belongs to the long cycle dedicated to Juliet Yardley Mills, the artist’s recurring model since the 1950s. The painting reflects the continuity of an observational relationship developed over more than four decades, in which the portrait becomes a layered process of form construction. The pictorial surface restores the temporal dimension of the work, founded on the reiteration of the sign and the constant revision of the image.
The collection, known as The Lewis Collection or Lewis Collection, was established over decades by Joe Lewis and his daughter Vivienne. The core of works has largely been exhibited in international museum institutions and, in several cases, has not appeared on the market for long periods or has never been presented there. The selection reflects a definite orientation toward modern figurative painting, with a focus on the representation of the human body and its interpretation.
The transaction comes at a time of strong activity in the global market for large private collections. In fact, the auction house recalled that the sale follows recent results that recorded record values in the single collection segment, including the sale of the Pauline Karpidas collection, which had reached about £101 million in London. In this context, the Lewis Collection stands as another test case for the high-end works market, with an estimate that significantly exceeds previous results.
“From the outset,” says the Lewis Collection spokesperson, “we were attracted to art that reflected what it means to be human: works that capture the people who inhabited the world of these artists-friends, muses, lovers and contemporaries-but in very different ways, capable of embodying the ambitions and obsessions of each author. We were encouraged to see that the School of London works presented in March were so well received, a confirmation both of a movement that has long resonated with us and of the enduring power of figurative painting. With the group that will be offered in June, we hope to elicit a similar sense of discovery, inspiring a new generation of collectors to engage with works that have been a source of joy and fascination for us and that have marked our collecting path over the years. During that time we have, like many of our collector peers, reorganized and redefined the collection. Although this public sale represents an important milestone, our collecting journey is far from over: we remain committed to contemporary avant-garde painters, many of whose works are influenced by the artists presented here.”
“Joe Lewis grew up in the creative ferment of postwar London, the city of Bacon, Freud and Kossoff, where the School of London first ignited his passion as a collector,” says Oliver Barker, president of Sotheby’s Europe. “That initial spark turned into a broader interest in figuration and, from there, into one of the most important private collections of modern art in the world, with works exhibited and celebrated in museums around the world. Now, in the city where this story began, it is a privilege to present these works together as the most important private collection ever offered in London. A true moment of closing the circle.”
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| Sotheby's sells the Lewis Collection, the most valuable private collection ever auctioned in Europe |
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