A study by Italian Futurist Gino Severini for a self-portrait in a straw boater will return to auction at Sotheby's New York on 19 November with an estimate of $2 million to $3 million. The work last changed hands at Christie's in 2014, when it sold for $4.76 million.

The drawing, Étude pour Autoportrait au canotier, is executed in charcoal, pastel and chalk on paper and measures 65.5 by 53.4 centimetres. Its current low estimate is double the $1 million low estimate it carried in 2014, a sign of how the market for the artist's works on paper has firmed up even as the top estimate sits below the previous sale price.

Severini, one of the signatories of the Futurist manifestos, moved between Paris and Italy throughout his career, and the self-portrait studies of his early Paris years are among his most sought-after works on paper. The boater, or canotier, was a fixture of Parisian life in the years before the First World War, and the study catches the artist presenting himself in the fashionable dress of the city he had made his home. This sheet has traded five times, according to HENI's market data, giving it one of the more documented provenances among Severini drawings to come to market this season.

The estimate itself tells a story. Pricing the work at $2 million to $3 million puts its top estimate well below the $4.76 million it achieved in 2014, even as the low estimate has doubled from $1 million. That combination suggests the house is pitching the drawing to buyers at a level it believes the current market will support, rather than chasing the last result. How it performs will be read as a signal for modern works on paper more broadly.