Bloomberg’s Scott Reyburn gets an early look at Christie’s New York Contemporary sale lead lot, a $10m Yves Klein Anthropometrie painting that has been in the same collection for 10 years and is being sold because of the rising tide of Klein prices:

Klein’s 9-foot-wide “Anthropometrie” painting “ANT 93, Le Buffle” (“The Buffalo”) will be offered in Christie’s May 11 sale of contemporary art. The work was painted in the artist’s trademark “International Klein Blue” in 1960 and 1961 on paper, now laid down on canvas, using a naked female model as a “living brush” to create the image of a buffalo.

“This is the second-largest ANT painting to come to auction,” Francis Outred, Christie’s European head of contemporary art, said in an interview. “Very few of his works make a specific reference to an animal. He’s using a naked female figure to make an image of a beast.”

Klein’s Naked Model Painting May Fetch $10 Million in New York (Bloomberg)