Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A Francis Bacon painting of a bullfight, valued at more than $35 million, goes on view today at Sotheby's in Madrid as the auction house courts buyers for its November sales.

``Study for Bullfight No.1, 2nd Version'' is one of three images of toreadors wrestling with bulls completed by the U.K. artist in 1969, when he was 60. Sotheby's wouldn't identify the seller. A catalog for a Bacon show in Dusseldorf last year said the owners were the Viktor and Marianne Langen Collection.

``I've been chasing this picture for years,'' said Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's contemporary art chief, in an interview. ``For Bacon, bullfighting was a symbol of artistic struggle and power.''

Bacon's ``Study'' will be offered on Nov. 14 in New York, along with a 1969 Bacon self-portrait from the same collection, valued at more than $15 million. The seller was promised a minimum price for the pictures, which will have their own catalog, Meyer said.

Bacon, who died in 1992, briefly set an auction record for postwar art in May, when Sotheby's sold one of his pope pictures, ``Study for Innocent X,'' for $52.7 million in New York. Then a work owned by David Rockefeller, Mark Rothko's ``White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)'' went for $72.8 million at the same sale.

Sotheby's and Christie's International, the two largest auction houses, are marketing art for their autumn sales in London and New York. Their U.S. sales last November took in about $1.5 billion. This year, they come after financial-market turbulence that threatens to cut bonuses at Wall Street companies.

In London, the No.2 art market, Sotheby's will offer Bacon's double portrait of Isabel Rawsthorne at a top estimate of $4.1 million during October's Frieze Art Fair.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 19, 2007 21:33 EDT