A detail from Aldo Micallef-Grimaud’s oil painting Kristu.

Over 20 pieces from artist’s Aldo Micallef-Grimaud’s collection will go under the hammer next week.

Many of the pieces, which include bozzetti (scale models or sketches), are being offered for sale for the first time, having been kept at the artist’s house and studio in Valletta.

Chev. Micallef Grimaud was known as a society painter and his work includes landscapes, still lifes and religious subjects. However, he is best known for portraiture.

His late wife, an artist herself, Mariucca Micallef Grimaud, told this newspaper that “art was his main love and life”.

The pieces, including Kristu, an 1966 oil painting of Christ, will be auctioned at Obelisk Auctions Gallery on June 27.

A student of Edward Caruana Dingli and Robert Caruana Dingli, Chev. Micallef Grimaud studied in Malta and abroad.

His “second love” was music, and he is known to have had an outstanding career as a lyrical singer.

He studied music and singing under Anthony Muscat Azzopardi, whose students included Oreste Kirkop and Paul Asciak.