Le Coq

This memorable artwork was completed by artist Miro in 1940, at a time when he was building his career, just before the turmoil brought about by WWII had truly set in.

This painting maybe entirely abstract, but the elements are far easier to decipher than many of his other artworks in the latter part of his career. The animal is entirely clear, there are no surrealist re-arrangements here, but a stunning Coq formed of an array of shapes. The colour scheme is entirely typical of this artist, with tones of red, blue, black and green found here. He uses white for the body and parts of the head in order to set those elements off against the rest of the scene. The background is formed of a sandy colour for the ground and blue for the sky - he felt no need to go into further detail than that, other than, of course, one of his signature elements with the red sun placed in the top right. There are none of the single, unaccompanied lines that appear in many of his other works, giving Le Coq a boldness which will remain in your mind for years to come.

Clearly, many others saw the same beauty in this painting as us, with the artwork being sold at auction for £6,628,000 in 2007 through the auction house, Christie's. This ranks as one of the more expensive prices given to a Miro painting over the years since his death but it is likely to be worth even more today. The opportunity to purchase such a work as this is become rarer and rarer, plus there are also a growing number of super rich collectors to compete for these opportunities. Whilst he worked in all manner of different mediums, it is his paintings that will always likely command the highest valuations - it was initially marketed at around £3-4m but clearly did well on the day, with perhaps a number of interested parties, from across the globe, helping to push its final price up considerably on that estimate.