Unseen for 30 Years, Van Gogh Harbor Scene Is Poised to Shatter Auction Records in Asia

For the first time in 30 years, Vincent van Gogh’s Les canots amarrés (Moored Boats) is set to hit the auction block.

The 1887 painting will appear at Christie’s Hong Kong on September 26 with an estimate of HKD $230 million–HKD $380 million (roughly $30 million to $50 million in US dollars). If the high estimate is met, Les canots amarrés will become the most expensive work by a Western artist sold at auction in Asia, beating the present record-holder, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 painting Warrior, which fetched HK$323.6 million ($41.7 million) at Christie’s in 2021.

Per the auction house, the painting was originally held in the collection of the Royal Family of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, descendants of the historic rulers of Sicily and southern Italy. It was purchased by Italian actress Edy Vessel at Sotheby’s London in 1991, and is now being offered at Christie’s by Vessel’s daughter, Princess Camilla, who acquired it via a family trust.

The work is part of a trio of landscapes painted by the artist in Asnières during his two-year travels in France. The picturesque Asnières, located along the Seine to the northwest of Paris, was a popular weekend retreat for boaters. The two works believed to complete the trio, Ponts sur la Seine à Asnières and Restaurant de la Sirène, Asnières, are owned by the Emil Bührle Collection and Ashmolean Museum, respectively. 

Max Carter, vice chairman of 20th/21st Century Art at Christie’s Americas, said in a statement, “In the final years of his brief life, Vincent achieved perfect artistic freedom from narrowly prescribed colors, techniques, and subjects. Here, in 1887, he revels in these dearly won freedoms as he loosens his brush, brightens his palette, and celebrates the subtle harmonies of an exquisite summer day.” 

The painting is tentatively scheduled to be exhibited at Christie’s new Asia Pacific Headquarters in Hong Kong from September 22 through 26.