Christie's Will Offer Big-Ticket Richter Abstraction in November

The auction houses are beginning to roll out news about the offerings in their upcoming November sales. Christie's announced today that Prag 1883, a 6-foot-square Gerhard Richter abstraction from 1983, will be on offer at the house's Nov. 14 New York evening auction of postwar and contemporary art. Christie's expects the painting to command in the region of $15 million. It comes from the collection of Steven A. Cohen.

The current auction record for Richter is $21.8 million, which was set at Christie's in May.

The painting's title refers to the birthplace and birth year of Franz Kafka. Richter was just beginning to explore his trademark abstraction at a large scale that year, according to the auction house.

Featuring a field of bright yellow overlaid with brushstroke-like areas of blue and green, with a darker blue and red passage at the top, the painting was previously owned by the Duke of Bavaria, Franz Adalbert Maria von Wittelsbachs, before coming to Cohen's collection.