Van Gogh’s ‘Sower’ will soon go on sale at Sotheby's—where it's set to make record price

Van Gogh’s Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun (July 1888) will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York on 18 November, with an estimate of $8m-$10m. If it exceeds the $8.8m hammer price of La Mousmé (August 1888), a portrait of a young woman from Arles which sold at Christie’s in 2021, it will set a new auction record for a Van Gogh drawing.

Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun belonged to Leonard Lauder, who died in June, aged 92. Along with his brother Ronald, another important art collector, he inherited a major stake in the leading American cosmetics company established by their parents, Estée and Joseph Lauder.

Leonard Lauder’s drawing, which Van Gogh made for his artist friend Emile Bernard, is a copy of a painting. The original painting, entitled The Sower (June 1888), now belongs to the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, in the east of the Netherlands. It is currently on loan to London’s National Gallery, in the exhibition Radical Harmony: Helene Kröller-Müller’s Neo-Impressionists (until 8 February 2026).

Van Gogh wrote to Bernard on 19 June 1888, describing the painting he was working on: “Large field with clods of ploughed earth, mostly downright violet. Field of ripe wheat in a yellow ochre tone with a little crimson.” The sky was “almost as bright as the sun itself”. Van Gogh was not seeking to depict realistic tones. “I could hardly give a damn about the veracity of the colour,” he wrote.

In his letter to Bernard, Van Gogh incorporated a rough sketch of the painting. On it he added some colour annotations, such a “jaune” (yellow) for the sun. Over the next few weeks Van Gogh reworked the painting and then made the more finished drawing for Bernard—the work now coming up at Sotheby’s.

In mid-July 1888 Van Gogh sent Bernard a group of nine drawings based on his recent paintings, including Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun.

For the sun and its rays, he used a pen with a fine line, whereas the wheatfield was drawn with broad strokes from a reed pen, which the the artist crafted from reeds growing along the canals outside Arles. His signature, “Vincent”, is inconspicuously inscribed in the lower-right corner among the wheat. A few weeks later he made a similar drawing of the painting which he sent to his brother Theo.

Cosmetics heir

The drawing sent to Bernard and coming up at Sotheby's boasts a distinguished history. Artists nearly always need cash and Bernard sold the Van Gogh sometime between 1899 and 1904 to the avant-garde Parisian dealer Ambroise Vollard. The next owner was Théodore Duret, a critic who wrote an important early monograph on Van Gogh, published in 1916.

In 1929 the drawing went to America, where it was quickly bought by the businessman and later government official John Nicholas Brown II. On his death in 1979, it passed to his son John Carter Brown, who was then the director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. John Carter quickly sold the Van Gogh and it was bought by Estée and Joseph Lauder. On Estée’s death in 2004, it went to her elder son Leonard.

Leonard Lauder became an important collector, amassing a superlative group of 89 Cubist works, which he donated to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2013. He was also a major benefactor of the Whitney Museum of American Art, donating $131m in 2008.

Twenty three major works from Lauder’s collection are to be sold by Sotheby’s on 18 November along with the Van Gogh, including a very important trio of paintings by Gustav Klimt. This sale is expected to fetch over $400m.

Leonard’s brother Ronald is a voracious collector and has bought four Van Gogh drawings. These include The Olive Trees (June-July 1889), which is now a promised gift to New York’s Museum of Modern Art. It was lent to the 2024-25 exhibition at London’s National Gallery, Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers. He is also believed to own Van Gogh’s sketch of the Postman Joseph Roulin (August 1888), which was loaned to the Boston showing of Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits at the Museum of Fine Arts (closed 7 September). Other drawings he has acquired are Boats on the Beach, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (June 1888) and Garden with Flowers (July 1888).

Two days after Sower in a Wheatfield with setting Sun comes up at Sotheby’s on 18 November, the auction house will offer two other Van Goghs from the Pritzker collection: the painting Parisian Novels (November-December 1887) and the drawing Public Garden with Benches (April 1888).

Other Van Gogh news

Also on 18 November, Christie’s is auctioning the Van Gogh drawing Fisherman with Basket on his Back (January-February 1883) in New York, with an estimate of $400,000-$600,000. The drawing last passed through an auction in 2003, when it fetched $232,000. It was owned by the Colorado financier and collector Matthew Healey, who died in January.