Two flower paintings by Jan van Huysum, the Dutch Golden Age master whose still lifes were once among the most expensive pictures in Europe, are set to lead Christie's Old Masters Evening Sale in London on 8 December. The pair, A Vase of Flowers and Fruit with Flowers, painted in 1731-1733, carries an estimate of $8 million to $10.7 million, or 6 million to 8 million pounds.

The pictures are the artist's only known large-scale fruit and flower pendants, which makes their appearance together a rare event. Their provenance runs through some of Europe's great collections, including the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, the Barings banking family and the Rothschilds, who paired them in the 19th century. They will be on view in New York until 16 November before travelling to London for public display from 4 December.

Van Huysum, who lived from 1682 to 1749, was famously secretive about his technique and built bouquets that no single season could produce, combining flowers that bloom months apart into impossible arrangements. In his lifetime his flower pieces sold for as much as ten times the price of a painting by Rembrandt, and the market for his work has stayed strong: two of his pictures set artist records at Christie's in London earlier this year, one reaching 6.52 million pounds.

The December sale comes at the end of a year in which Old Masters have drawn fresh attention from buyers, with several artist records falling across the London sales. Whether the pendants clear their high estimate will be a test of that momentum, and of the enduring premium collectors place on Van Huysum's name.