TORONTO —The most valuable pieces in Hudson's Bay's art collection are scheduled to hit the auction block later today.
Heffel Fine Art Auction House will host a live sale this afternoon to find new homes for 27 paintings owned by the shuttered department store.
The star of the auction is expected to be an oil-on-canvas painting of Marrakech by former British prime minister Winston Churchill. It's estimated value is between 400-thousand dollars and 600-thousand dollars.
Other highlights include a Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith painting of pedestrians on a rainy Toronto street and two early 19th-century pieces from William von Moll Berczy, one of the founders of Toronto.
David Heffel, head of the auction house, says the items slated for the live auction are the standouts in H-B-C's collection of 44-hundred artifacts and thus, likely to fetch the most money.
Heffel's auction house will be selling the collapsed retailer's remaining pieces in a series of online auctions. The first concludes next month and includes blankets, portraits and fine art.