A rare and important sculpture by Egypt’s most significant modern sculptor, Mahmoud Mokhtar’s Three Beggars embodies the artist’s use of his classical training to mould local figures from Egyptian culture and Islamic history. One of only two examples of this work are known, with the other held in the collection of the Mokhtar Museum in Cairo. Having remained in the same private collection since it was gifted to Mokhtar’s teacher, the sculptor Jules-Félix Coutan, in the 1930s, the bronze is set to make its auction debut on 30 April, as part of Sotheby’s 20th Century Art / Middle East sale.