Joan Miró's Figures in the Night is set to return to the auction block at Christie's in Paris on October 22, carrying a pre-sale estimate of $784,300 (€700,000) to $1.12 million. The work has been traded seven times in the past, giving the market a well-documented price trail for this particular sheet. Its most recent auction appearance was in 2011, when it sold for $962,500 at Christie's — a result that sat above the top of its then-estimate range. The current low estimate of $784,300 is 1% lower than the previous low estimate of $800,000, suggesting the house is pricing cautiously relative to where bidding landed fifteen years ago. The work itself is executed in an unusual combination of charcoal, pastel and strawberry jam on paper, measuring 49.5 by 64.1 centimetres. The jam — used as a drawing medium — is a characteristic Miró touch, a reminder of the artist's experimental approach to materials that ran through his work on paper. The October 22 sale places the Miró within Christie's autumn Paris season, a calendar that has grown in importance for modern and contemporary sales. For collectors of Miró works on paper, the lot offers a traceable provenance and a price history anchored by a strong 2011 result — the question is whether the market will meet or beat that precedent this time around. Seven recorded trades give this sheet one of the longer public price trails among works on paper coming to auction this autumn. The strawberry jam medium — genuinely used here as a drawing material — is a reminder of why Miró's works on paper continue to intrigue: the material experimentation is inseparable from the image. Whether bidding on October 22 can recover the ground lost since the 2011 high will be the test.