A SALE of Impressionist and modern masterpieces in New York next month is poised to become the highest-earning art auction on record.

About 86 lots, including a Blue Period Picasso owned by composer Lord Lloyd-Webber, and four works by Gustav Klimt are expected to fetch up to $490 million (£260 million) when they go under the hammer at Christie’s in New York on November 8 and 9.

The four Klimts — Adele Bloch-Bauer II, Houses in Unterach on the Attersee, Apple Tree I and Birch Forest, are together expected to sell for about $140 million. Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Picasso, a 1903 portrait of the artist’s friend Angel Fernández de Soto, has a sale estimate of up to $60 million.

The sale, held by Christie’s, follows the successful sale by Sotheby’s earlier this year in New York of another Picasso. Dora Maar With Cat, a 1941 portrait of his lover painted at the height of the couple’s affair, which sold for £52 million, making it the second most-expensive artwork ever acquired at auction.

Prices have not been this buoyant since 1990, the year before the market crashed. Russians are said to feature among the new-money collectors competing with established American buyers such as Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas casino owner, Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, and Ronald Lauder, heir to the cosmetics fortune. The four Klimts made headlines earlier this year, when, along with other valuable pieces, they were returned by the Austrian Government to the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer after a seven-year legal battle.