Next week, Christie's will hold an Impressionist and modern art sale in London. It could well be the most lucrative auction the UK has ever hosted. The low end of the estimate for the sale -- which includes a portrait of the anarchist Angel Fernandez de Soto from Pablo Picasso's Blue Period and a water-lily painting by Claude Monet -- stands at over £160m (€191m).

Next month, Sotheby's will hold its own blockbuster sale including Modern Rome -- Campo Vaccino, the best painting by JMW Turner to appear on the open market in two decades. The auction house has placed a price range of £12m to £18m on the painting -- the same estimate it attached to L'Homme Qui Marche I by Alberto Giacometti in January, which actually made more than £65m.