Eric Clapton To Make Millions At Sotheby's Auction Off 'Abstraktes Bild' Painting By Gerhard Richter

Blues guitarist Eric Clapton is expected to rake in an astounding amount of money for a rare painting he purchased in 2001.

Clapton, who is already worth a reported $115 million, is expected to earn between $14 million-$19 million when he puts an abstract painting by the German artist Gerhard Richter up for auction at Sotheby's next month, Reuters reports.

According to the newswire, Clapton bought the paining, titled "Abstraktes Bild (809-4)," about 11 years ago for $3.4 million.

Gerhard Richter has long been one of the world's most sought after living painters with an auction record of $21.8 million set in New York in May. Among his most notable works in the pop world is the cover of Sonic Youth's 1988 LP, "Daydream Nation."

Abstraktes Bild (809-4) is one of a series of four paintings the artist made in the mid-1990s. According to Rolling Stone, three of them were sold to the former Cream guitarist in 2001, while the fourth is owned by the joint collection of the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.

The work, more than two meters square "ranks alongside the very highest tier of Richter Abstracts housed in museums internationally," Sotheby's told Reuters.

The "Slowhand" guitarist will put the piece up at London's contemporary art evening auction on Oct. 12, which coincides with the Frieze Art Fair, one of the more significant weeks for the global art market.

A known patron of the arts, Clapton sold more than 70 of his guitars at a charity auction in New York last year, raising $2.15 million for the Crossroads Center, a drug and alcohol rehab facility in Antigua he co-founded in 1998.