Georgina Adam opines on the market for Francis Bacon paintings in her Financial Times column. She doesn’t like the looks of things after the failure of another one at Christie’s last week. Although she thinks the Bacon show at the Prado might help move some canvases at ARCO:

Bacon’s “Man in Blue VI”, estimated at £4m-£5m, a dark work with a blurred figure in the centre, one of a series of seven paintings dating from 1954. It had never been on the market before and was billed as the sale’s highlight. “This series has never been easy and the estimate was far too high,” said London dealer Gérard Faggionato, who represents the Bacon estate. The painting’s flop leaves the market for Bacon, which had seemed solidly blue-chip, in disarray. In New York last November, Christie’s also failed to sell Bacon’s 1964 self-portrait, estimated at $40m. [ . . . ] With the Bacon show at the Prado, some dealers brought his works. Gérard Faggionato is showing two small portraits from the early 1960s at €2.7m each, while Marlborough is offering a large, late, yellow-hued “Study for the Human Body” (1985) at €15.7m.

Bacon Fails to Sizzle (Financial Times)