The exhibition opens to the public in Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries today, with many of the works on view for the first time in decades. They will be hung in such a way as to illuminate the often-unexpected connections between artists and periods, shining a spotlight on the various threads that run through Western art history.

The Evening Sale will take place at 6pm BST on 28 July, offering over seventy works. Among the star lots are works by Joan Miró (est. £20-30 million / $25-37.5 million), Francis Bacon (est. £12-18 million / $15-22.5 million), Henri Matisse (est. £8-12 million / $10-15 million), Rembrandt (est. £12-16 million / $15-20 million), Gerhard Richter (est. £9-12 million / $11.3-15 million), Fernand Léger (est. £8-12 million / $10-15 million), Pablo Picasso (est. £6-9 million / $7.5-11.3 million), David Hockney (est. £4-6 million / £5-7.5 million) and Alberto Giacometti (est. £4-6 million / £5-7.5 million). Almost two-thirds of the art in the sale has never been at auction before, and of the lots that have appeared in the past, some 70% have been off the market for two decades. View the full catalogue online here.

“This auction brings together spectacular works by some of the greatest names in art history – artists who re-wrote the rule book – and, with the global art world calendar having shifted, we too have seized the opportunity to do things differently. As a new generation of collectors show less concern with the traditional art market categories of the past, this is a sale without boundaries for those collectors who look for the best of the best, regardless of where or when the artworks were made. Following the success of our recent New York auction in June, live-streamed in real-time across the world, and strong success in Hong Kong last week, we are excited now to be presenting another great offering to the world’s hungry market in London.”Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe