Collectors will be spoilt for choice this month as a succession of headline-grabbing artworks go under the hammer as the auction year winds up. All eyes will be on the sale of Menzies’ $5 million to $7 million Whiteley and on Deutscher and Hackett’s $2.5 million to $3.5 million Drysdale, both potential record-breakers, as previously reported in Saleroom.

Not to be outdone, Smith & Singer has consigned a few gems of its own. While not in the same monetary league as the Whiteley or Drysdale, Rupert Bunny’s haughtily elegant portrait of his companion and muse, the French artist Jeanne-Heloise Morel, could set a new record for the artist. Estimated at $800,000 to $1.2 million, the sumptuous Portrait of Mlle Morel, from 1895, is the star work in Smith & Singer’s 74-lot final auction of the year.