Word leaked out from a Sotheby’s luncheon for art advisers yesterday that the auction house has scored two major lots for what is otherwise expected to be a rather drab fall season.

In its Impressionist and modern evening sale on November 4, Sotheby’s will offer a superb Alberto Giacometti painted bronze, L’homme qui chavire, sculpted in 1947 and cast sometime later, estimated at $8–12 million.

The ultraslender falling man is being sold by publishing magnate S.I. Newhouse, Jr., who is believed to have acquired the work privately.

Newhouse has been in the news this week, shocking the media world by shuttering four magazines from his Condé Nast empire, including the stalwart Gourmet.

Another version of the Giacometti, but without the rarified hand-painted surface, sold at Christie’s New York in May 2007 for a then-record $18,520,000 (est. $6.5–8.5 million).

On November 11, Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale will include Andy Warhols iconic 200 One Dollar Bills from 1962 (est. $8-12 million), a large-scale work measuring 80¼ by 92¼ inches. It last sold at auction at Sotheby’s New York at the famed Robert Scull estate sale in November 1986 for a then-record $385,000 (est. $175-225,000). That buyer is consigning the painting.

With all the talk of a diminished season, these two gangbuster works show there’s still some potential for auction fever.