Damien Hirst to Auction Own Works at Sotheby's

LONDON—This September 15 and 16, Damien Hirst will offer a selection of his own artworks at Sotheby's, in an auction titled "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever." The highlight of the sale will be The Golden Calf, a a formaldehyde-dipped bull with a disc-shaped solid-gold crown, gold-dipped hooves, and horns inside a gold-framed-glass box, estimated at £8–12 million ($15.7–23.7 million), reports Bloomberg. The sale will also include other formaldehyde works, paintings, cabinets, and drawings created in the past two years; Sotheby's has not yet disclosed the remaining lots.

Hirst said in a joint statement with Sotheby's that he's been wanting to do another auction since the successful sale of the contents of his defunct restaurant Pharmacy in 2004 — which sold out completely, earning £11.1 million, double its £4.9 million top estimate.

Generally auction houses do not charge fees to the sellers of multimillion-dollar contemporary art collections, but Sotheby's wouldn't say if Hirst, who takes a 70 percent cut of works sold through galleries, rather than the conventional 50 percent, according to the Times (London), will be charged a commission.

"It's a very democratic way to sell art,'' Hirst said in the statement. "It feels like a natural evolution for contemporary art."