John William Godward's Cool Retreat will lead Victorian art sale

John William Godward's A Cool Retreat is valued at £350,000-450,000 ($468,494-602,349) at Christie's.  

The lot will star in the Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite and British Impressionist auction on July 14.

Godward Cool Retreat
Godward's work was unfashionable during his own lifetime

Godward was a neo-classicist who's dreamy and introverted paintings usually depict toga-clad women at rest.

Unfortunately, the style was already unfashionable when Godward started painting and became increasingly more so over the course of his career.

He killed himself in 1922, after coming to the conclusion that all his life's work had been for nothing.

In his suicide note he wrote: "The world is not big enough for myself and a Picasso".

Buyers clearly disagree.

The profile of Godward's work has grown over the past decade and has attracted a dedicated core of collectors enchanted by his vision.

His canvases now regularly sell for sums around the $1m mark.

Sir Alfred James Munnings' After the Steeplechase at Newbury is expected to make £200,000-300,000 ($291,600-437,400).

The work shows the aftermath of a race, a subject Munnings painted several times between 1946 and 1947.

Munnings is considered one of the greatest horse painters who ever lived.

In 1944 he was elected president of the Royal College of Art, a position that indicates his status during his own lifetime.

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