£6m to bring home slice of Bacon

It depicts the seamy side of Soho in the Sixties and is widely regarded as one of Francis Bacon's most shocking images.

This picture of one of the artist's female friends lying in a drug-addled stupor is expected to fetch more than £6 million when it goes on sale at Sotheby's in New York in November.

That would be a world-record price at auction for the controversial painter, who has been described as the greatest British artist since Turner.

The current record for a Bacon is £5.8 million, set last November by Study For A Pope I (1961). His figurative Version No 2 Of Lying Figure With Hypodermic Syringe will be on show at Sotheby's in London from 11 to 15 October in advance of the US sale.

It depicts Henrietta Moraes, one of a select band of friends and lovers painted by Bacon, her arm pierced by a hypodermic syringe.

Bacon met Mrs Moraes, former wife of Indian poet Dom Moraes, in Soho in the Sixties and she became one of his favourite subjects.

The 6ft high painting is one of 90 paintings and sculptures being sold from the collection of Roger Vanthournout, a Belgian furniture manufacturer who died last year, and his wife Josette.

Bacon, who died in 1992, destroyed much of his work but the paintings that survive are in many of the world's major collections and have fetched increasingly high prices. Another depiction of Mrs Moraes was auctioned for £3.55 million in 2002, a world record at the time.