This November, one of just six surviving paintings from Francis Bacon’s famed Tangier series will be offered in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Entitled Pope, the present work was executed in Morocco circa 1958, during a particularly emotional and prolific period of the artist’s life. The offering of Pope is momentous: prior to this, only two of the six surviving Tangier paintings have ever appeared at auction – the most recent, another Pope, was sold at Sotheby’s in 2008 for $7.3 million (estimate $3.2 – 4.7 million).