Munch print kept by one family for 50 years heads to auction
A rare woodcut print by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, held in one household’s hands for over five decades, is now heading to auction in London with an estimate of £50,000 to £80,000.
The piece, titled Melancholy III and dated 1902, turned up at a private estate in north Kent complete with its original 1969 receipt, showing it had been bought in Norway for 42,000 Norwegian kroner — roughly £3,300 at today’s exchange rates. Catherine Southon Auctioneers, based in Chislehurst, will offer the signed woodcut at its London sale on 28 October.
A quieter side of Munch
Munch is best remembered for The Scream and for channelling raw emotion — anxiety, jealousy, loneliness and despair — onto canvas and paper. Auction house owner Catherine Southon said Melancholy III captures a gentler mood than that iconic image, describing it as a “quieter” meditation on loneliness and unrequited love. The print depicts a lone figure by the shoreline, set against a couple walking toward a rowing boat in the distance — a contrast the auctioneers say reflects one of the artist’s most recognisable themes. The scene is based on Åsgårdstrand, the Norwegian coastal town where Munch regularly summered.
Southon said the technique behind the piece adds to its appeal: Munch carved the composition into one oak block, then cut a second “colour block” into separate sections to ink the sky, sea and shore individually before printing. Auctioneers have called it “an early impression of one of Munch’s best-known themes.”
For Southon, the find is notable as much for its paper trail as its artistry. “It is always exciting to discover a work of this calibre emerging from a private family collection, particularly when it has remained with the same family for more than half a century,” she said. She added that the surviving 1969 receipt was a rare bonus: “What makes this discovery especially compelling is the survival of the original 1969 purchase receipt, which gives us a wonderful glimpse into the work’s history and the moment it first entered the family’s care.”
Source: BBC News