Beginning on Jan. 27, the Cleveland Museum of Art will offer 30 European old master paintings from its collection in a series of sales at Sotheby's in New York.

Mostly by minor masters, three-quarters of the paintings to be sold were gifts to the museum. The auction total is estimated at a range from $706,000 to $1,022,000.

"These are pictures that probably don't have a place in the Cleveland Museum of Art context, but could have a happy life elsewhere," said C. Griffith Mann, the museum's chief curator.

It is the museum's largest sell-off from its collection in more than a half-century, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The museum, which is undergoing a $350 million expansion and renovation, will use earnings from the sale to buy more old master paintings for the collection.