VAN GOGH PAINTING UNVEILED IN HONG KONG AHEAD OF NEW YORK AUCTION

Crowds queued in Hong Kong to view Vincent van Gogh's painting Châtaigniers en fleurs (Chestnut Trees in Blossom), unseen in public for more than 60 years. The work is on display ahead of a Sotheby's auction in New York on 18 November, where it is expected to fetch around $180 million (£136 million), a potential record for a Van Gogh painting at auction. Scott Niichel, of Sotheby's modern and contemporary art department, said the piece reflects "a moment of extraordinary optimism, frenetic energy, enthusiasm, passion, and colour" in Van Gogh's work. Li Shanshan, an art lover who travelled from Shenzhen, said she had never heard of the painting before.

Van Gogh painted the work in May 1890 in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where he died about two months later, shortly after his release from a psychiatric asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The painting depicts a blossoming chestnut tree dominating the composition. It passed from Van Gogh to his brother Theo, then to Theo's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and their son Vincent Willem, before being acquired by the German publisher Samuel Fischer. The work is being sold as part of a collection of 12 long-unseen paintings that also includes pieces by Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet.

Five works from the same collection, including Cézanne's Arlequin and Monet's Le Jardin des Tuileries, were unveiled at Sotheby's in London in late September. Paintings from Van Gogh's Auvers-sur-Oise period rarely come to market, Sotheby's said. The sale is expected to draw interest from collectors, museums and investors. The auction is scheduled to take place in New York on 18 November, with Sotheby's maintaining its $180 million estimate.