Edvard Munch´s Vampire (1894)

Edvard Munch's 1894 masterpiece Vampire is to be sold after more than 70 years in the hands of a private collector.

Vampire, often seen as the sister of Munch's iconic painting The Scream, will be auctioned at Sotheby's, in New York, for an estimated $35m (£19m). It would smash the existing Munch record of $30.8m (£16.65m) set in May for Girls on a Bridge.

Vampire provoked controversy when it was first unveiled, stoking early-20th Century fears about women's liberation. It depicts a man and woman locked in an embrace and represents themes of love, sex and death.

(...) Simon Shaw, senior vice president and head of Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art Department in New York, said: "Few paintings pack as hard a punch as Munch's Vampire. "Like The Scream, it distils extraordinarily intense feelings into a simple, unforgettable motif. The lovers, locked in their dark embrace, evoke love's paradox as a source of tenderness and pain." [source: BBC]

 

Indeed, the first title of the Painting was "Love and Pain".