Hundreds of people lined up in Hong Kong on Tuesday to view a Vincent Van Gogh painting never publicly ​exhibited in more than six decades, ahead of a Sotheby's auction in New York where it is expected ⁠to fetch about $180 million.

The Nov. 18 ⁠auction will test the strength of the high-end art market, in which collectors have continued to compete for scarce trophy works, undeterred ​by broader economic uncertainty.

Painted in May 1890, "Chataigniers en fleurs," ​or "Chestnut Trees ⁠in Blossom," is one of the most important works from the Dutch artist's final days in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where he died about two months later, aged 37.

The painting is poised to set a new auction record for a Van Gogh work, said Scott Niichel, of Sotheby's modern and contemporary art department in New York.

"This is a moment of extraordinary optimism, frenetic energy, enthusiasm, passion, and color in the artist's body of work," he said.

Paintings from Van Gogh's final Auvers-sur-Oise period, just after his ⁠release ⁠from a psychiatric asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, rarely come to market and the auction will draw the attention of collectors, museums and investors.

"I'd never heard of this painting before, so I wanted to see it with my own eyes," said Li Shanshan, a 50-year-old art lover who traveled about two and a half hours from the southern city of Shenzhen to view the artwork.

The painting, which depicts a massive blossoming chestnut tree with a flowering ⁠canopy that dominates the composition, will be sold as part of a collection of 12 long-unseen works, including items by Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet.

Five unveiled at Sotheby's in ​London in late September included Cezanne's "Arlequin" and Monet’s "Le Jardin des Tuileries."

After Van Gogh's death ​in July 1890, "Chataigniers en fleurs" was passed to his brother Theo, and then to the latter's widow Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and their ⁠son Vincent ‌Willem.

Subsequently it ‌was owned by German publisher Samuel Fischer, founder of ⁠S. Fischer Verlag, before entering the collection of ‌George "Buddy" DeSylva, the American songwriter, film producer and co-founder of Capitol Records.

In 1953, the ​painting was acquired by collector ⁠Harriet Harris-Jonas, whose holdings were considered significant enough that New ⁠York's Metropolitan Museum of Art organized visits for patrons to view works ⁠in her Fifth Avenue ​apartment.

The painting was acquired by the Blaquier family from art dealer Wildenstein in 1975.