A 1909 oil painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky is poised to sell for as much as $30 million when it hits the auction block at Christie's this fall, the auction house said on Wednesday.

Study For Improvisation 8, a vibrant work on cardboard and canvas from the pioneering abstract artist's Improvisations series, is being sold by the Volkart Foundation, a charitable trust founded by 160-year-old Swiss commodities trading firm Volkart Brothers.

"Kandinsky's Improvisation series is at the nexus of some of the most compelling innovations of the avant-garde era," said Brooke Lampley, head of Impressionist and modern art Christie's, which estimates it will sell for $20 million to $30 million.

A sale in that range could set a record for the artist, whose previous high was $20.9 million for his 1914 piece Fugue. Set in 1990, that price is a notably longstanding mark given soaring prices in the art market since that time.

Kandinsky, who did not begin painting until age 30 and taught at Germany's influential Bauhaus school for a decade, conceived his oeuvre into categories of Impressions, Improvisations and Compositions, starting with the Improvisation series. Study for Improvisation 8 and its finished version were the last in that series.

The sale could provide a partial test of the art market's current strength, after it collapsed in the wake of the financial crisis before making a startlingly fast recovery.

Reuters