Munch collection could fetch £12m

Summer Day is the highlight of the auction. Enlarge Image

A collection of Edvard Munch paintings valued at up to £12m will be offered for auction at Sotheby's next month.

The paintings are being sold by Norwegian shipping magnate Fred Olsen for "security and tax" reasons.

Sotheby's in London said it was "the greatest collection of works by Edvard Munch ever to appear for sale on the international market".

Among the works is 1904 painting Summer Day which is expected to fetch up to £3.5m in the sale on 7 and 8 February.

It is the most important Munch painting to be offered for sale since Girls On A Bridge fetched a world record price of £4.4m in 1996, according to Sotheby's.

Other works in the collection include Self-Portrait In Front Of Two-Coloured Background (1904), estimated at up to £3m, and Self-Portrait Recovering from Spanish Flu (1918), expected to fetch up to £1m.

Mr Olsen told London's Evening Standard newspaper on Wednesday he hoped a foreign museum would buy the paintings "so that as many people as possible could see them".

Norway already has two museums with large Munch collections.