Andy Warhol's "Double Elvis [Ferus Type]" is estimated to sell for between $30 million to $50 million at Sotheby's in New York on May 9, 2012.
It seems like auction gold: combine pop-art icon Andy Warhol with music icon Elvis Presley and you get an exceptional piece of fine art. A piece of art that might just set you back $30 to $50 million.
On May 9th, Warhol’s silkscreen portrait “Double Elvis [Ferus Type]” will go up for auction at Sotheby’s, where it is expected to sell to a buyer who doesn’t find that estimated price range to be a problem.
The portrait, which shows Elvis appearing to quickly draw a pistol from his holster like an Old-West gunslinger, was first displayed in Los Angeles at the Ferris Gallery in 1963, according to a Sotheby’s release. It is said to be only one of 22 “Elvis” works, and the first “Double Elvis” to be auctioned in over a decade.
In 2004, as Bloomberg notes, a Warhol portrait called “Single Elvis [Ferus Type]” was auctioned for $3.4 million. Even if this “Double” portrait does sell for $50 million, it won’t even be the highest-selling Warhol at an auction. That title goes to “Green Car Crash (Green Car Burning),” which sold for $71.7 million in 2007, Reuters reported. (The most expensive Warhol, sold privately, was “Eight Elvises” which sold for $100 million.)
And who knows how the bidding might shake out this May. Last year, at a Christie’s auction, Andy Warhol’s “Self-Portrait” made headlines not only for its staggering selling price — $38 million — but also because it sparked a 16-minute bidding war, deemed the longest in auction history at the time.