A painting by artist Sonia Delaunay painted in Portugal is up for auction in London with an estimate close to one million euros, as part of a sale of works of modern and impressionist art.
'Marché au Minho' ('Mercado in Minho') is part of a series of large paintings produced by the French artist of Russian origin during her exile in Portugal, in Vila do Conde, from June 1915 to January 1917, with her husband , Robert Delaunay, also a painter.
The stay in Portugal was forced due to the First World War, but the couple was fascinated by the Minho region and the work of the time was greatly influenced by popular culture, the colors of Minho scarves and the natural light of Portugal.
The copy at auction at Christie's with an estimate of between 700 thousand and one million pounds (795 thousand and 1.13 million euros) is a work on paper that was part of Jorge de Brito's collection and until recently belonged to an American collector. Two canvases from the same series produced by Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) in Minho are at the Pompidou Center and at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).
In 2002, a painting also entitled 'Mercado do Minho' was sold at an auction in Paris for a record sum of 4,596,340 euros, ten times the bidding base, a world record for a work by this artist, said auctioneer Drouot at the time.
The Delaunay painting will go up for auction on Friday, as part of a sale of modern and impressionist works on paper, along with works by artists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Gustav Klimt, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse or Joan Miro´.