London, Jan. 11: Masterpieces by some of the world’s most famous artists are to be sold next month as the credit crunch starts to takes its toll on art collectors.

Works by artists including Amedeo Modigliani, Camille Pissarro, Oskar Kokoschka, Piet Mondrian and Edouard Vuillard — some of which have never before been seen at auction — are to be sold after many years in the hands of private collectors.

Art experts say the global economic downturn is forcing some collectors to part with rare works and family heirlooms they can no longer afford to keep, even though the works are unlikely to reach their full sale potential as prices in the art market fall.

Among the works up for auction next month is Istanbul I, 1929, by Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka, which is to be sold in London by the heirs of Oskar Federer, who was a prominent Jewish industrialist in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s.

Most of Kokoschka’s significant works are owned by museums, and oil paintings by the artist rarely come on the market. The cityscape of Istanbul is expected to fetch up to £1.8 million.

Also up for sale is Pissarro’s Bords de ’oise a Pontoise, 1868-1870, one of the French impressionist’s finest landscape paintings. The work, which has been with the same American collector, is expected to fetch up to £700,000.

Both works will be auctioned at Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in London on February 3, alongside Edgar Degas’ Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, 1879-81. The sculpture, which belongs to John Madejski, the chairman of Reading Football Club, is considered Degas’ most important sculpture.

Sarah Thornton, an art expert and the author of Seven Days in the Art World, said: “Anyone who puts up a masterpiece in this season needs the money, because the works are not going to realise what they would have done six months ago, or what they might do in three years time. Private collectors selling now are either distress-selling or they want the money to invest in something else.”

The Sunday Telegraph