$61m tag for van Gogh painting

Van Gogh's Still life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies.

A "beautiful" and "poignant" still life painted by Vincent van Gogh weeks before his suicide is expected to fetch up to 30 million ($61 million) when it goes on auction in November.

Still life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies has been described as the most important painting of its kind to go on the market in two decades.

It was produced by the Dutch artist in 1890, not long before he shot himself in the chest with a revolver, aged 37.

Van Gogh painted just a few hundred works in his career, the majority of which are displayed in museums.

The painting will be sold by Sotheby's in New York on November 4.

Simon Shaw, co-head of Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby's, described the work as "beautiful" and capturing the "intensity of the artist, who is believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder, at the height of his mania.

Mr Shaw describes the painting as "poignant" because van Gogh picked the flowers from the meadows where he is thought to have shot himself.