A Francis Bacon painting depicting a man attacked by vultures may fetch a record $70 million when it is auctioned in New York in May, Sotheby’s said.

Bacon’s 1976 triptych, painted while he was living in Paris, is being sold by a European collector who has owned it for more than 30 years, the auction house said in a statement today.

Sotheby’s set the current record for a work by Bacon in May 2007, when “Study from Innocent X, 1962,” sold in New York for $52.7 million.

“This is undoubtedly the most important Bacon in private hands,” Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, Tobias Meyer, said in the statement.

Sotheby’s and Christie’s International are gathering art for their next big impressionist and contemporary sales.

The triptych draws on the story of Orestes being plagued by the Furies for its images, said Sotheby’s.

The seller, who bought the work from Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris, has not been promised a guaranteed minimum price for the work, Sotheby’s said.

Via Bloomberg – To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in New York at lsandler@bloomberg.net