A self-portrait painted by David Bowie in 1996 is coming to auction for the first time, carrying a pre-sale estimate of £35,000 to £55,000. It will appear in Sotheby's Modern British & Irish Art Day Auction in London on Thursday 15 October. The work on paper belongs to a small group of portrait heads the musician produced during what Sotheby's calls a prolific mid-1990s painting period. After Bowie gave the piece to his St Ives gallerist, it remained in the same collection ever since, and the auction house calls it one of the most striking and personal self-portraits by Bowie ever to appear at auction. What sets it apart is physical immediacy: alongside his likeness, Bowie pressed two of his own handprints directly onto the composition, the lower corners carrying an unusually intimate connection to the artist. In Sotheby's reading, it is arguably the closest thing to a physical trace of Bowie himself that a collector could own. The portrait stares directly out at the viewer, prominently displaying his famously asymmetric eyes. The sale is also a rarity play. Sotheby's notes that very little has been published about Bowie's painting practice, that no catalogue raisonné or definitive record of the body of work exists, and that only two Bowie self-portraits have previously come to auction. The work is on public view ahead of the sale. Bowie, who died in January 2016 aged 69 after an eighteen-month battle with cancer, remains one of the most collected musician-artists in the market.