A rare, life-sized bronze by sculptor Alberto Giacometti, to be auctioned off by Sotheby's, is expected to fetch between £12 million and £18 million ($19.8 to $28.7 million Cdn).

The auction house announced that L'Homme qui marche I— one of several skeletal walking men sculptures created by the Swiss artist — will be on the block Feb. 3 in London.

"We are delighted to have the rare opportunity to offer a monumental and lifetime cast of this iconic work," Helena Newman, co-chairman of Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art department, said in a statement Friday.

Cast in bronze in 1961, the 1.8 metre tall work is being sold by German banking firm Commerzbank AG, which had acquired it when it took over Dresdner Bank in 2009. The Dresdner Bank has had the work in its collection since 1980.

The walking man series originated as part of a public project commissioned for Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York. It is reported to be the first outdoor piece of modernist art ever created for the city's financial district.

Giacometti executed several sculptures, only a few of which remain today.

The artist, who died in 1966, decided he would cast all the walking man sculptures in bronze.