Works by van Gogh and Cézanne up for sale in Sotheby's $450 million auction

LONDON -- A dozen Impressionist and post-Impressionist artworks collectively valued at almost half a billion dollars are going up for auction after sitting unseen for decades in a fabled private collection in South America.Sotheby’s auction house said Wednesday that works by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne are expected to smash records for the artists in the Nov. 18 sale in New York. If so, it would be the latest sign that, in uncertain times, ultrawealthy art collectors are seeking security in masterpieces.The paintings come from a collection amassed by the late Argentine art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her sugar magnate husband, Carlos Pedro Blaquier, and are being sold by their children.They include van Gogh’s landscape “Châtaigniers en fleurs,” (Chestnut Trees in Flower) estimated at $180 million, and Cézanne’s portrait “Arlequin,” which carries an estimate of $120 million. Neither has been seen in public for half a century.Helena Newman, Sotheby’s head of Impressionist and modern art, said the collection was like a “mini- Musée D'Orsay,” the Paris museum that holds one of the world’s greatest collections of Impressionist and post-Impressionist artworks. “In my 30...