Lehman's art treasures go on sale

ARTWORK that once adorned the walls of collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers will go under the hammer next month in a £2 million sale, adminstrators of the business said yesterday.

PricewaterhouseCoopers will hold the auction at Christie's on 29 September, days after the second anniversary of the bankruptcy which almost triggered a global financial meltdown.

Works by artists including Lucien Freud and Gary Hume will all be up for sale to the highest bidder in the auction, PwC said.

Another major work owned by the firm, photographer Andreas Gursky's New York Mercantile Exchange, will be auctioned separately in October and is hoped to fetch between 100,000 and 150,000.

The sale will raise a miniscule sum compared with the $613 billion (384bn) in debts held by Lehman when it collapsed.

Alongside the artworks, memorabilia will also be up for grabs, including the commemorative plaque from the opening of the firm's Canary Wharf office in 2004 by then-chancellor Gordon Brown. This could fetch an estimated 1,500, while the sign for the office itself is hoped to land up to 3,000 for creditors.

PwC carried out a similar auction seven years ago in the wake of the collapse of scandal-hit US energy trading and power company Enron.