By Christopher Michaud

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The art market is looking to Vincent van Gogh to show the way.

When the hammer comes down on Sotheby's auction of van Gogh's "Wheat Fields" on Wednesday, the final price of the 1890 landscape painted just before the artist's death could hint at whether the art market boom is forging ahead.

If it does not sell, then some expects say that would be a sign that the market may be in trouble.

"The Fields (Wheat Fields)" has been estimated to sell for $28 million to $35 million.

Those are hefty sums but nowhere near the artist's $82.5 million record or the prices commanded by Picasso's "Boy With a Pipe" and "Dora Maar With Cat," which in recent years sold for $104 million and $95 million respectively.

But as one of the troubled painter's last works, and most probably his final landscape, "Wheat Fields" -- which graced van Gogh's room in the village of Auvers outside Paris at the time of his suicide -- could soar higher.

"I could see it going to at least $40 million, and probably $45 to $50 million," said Richard Feigen, one of New York's most prominent art dealers. "Van Gogh is a magic name, and they don't come up very often."

The last van Gogh landscape offered at auction sold for around $27 million in 1995. "Wheat Fields," part of a private European collection, has been on loan to Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum since 2001.

"The market at this point is very, very healthy and there's just so much liquidity out there, so I'd be very surprised to see any bumps in the Impressionist and modern sales," Feigen said.

Nanne Dekking, vice president at Wildenstein and a specialist in Impressionist art, concurred, citing "the myth of a van Gogh." But he added that he thought Sotheby's estimate was "right on," noting the work was "not the strongest" of the artist's final works.

Dekking also said it was unlikely that the work, for which Sotheby's has guaranteed the seller an undisclosed minimum price, would fail to sell.

"I don't see any reasons for the market not to hold up," he said. "It's strong right now."

Art experts agree that an influx of new collectors from Russia, China and India are helping drive an internationally financed boom, in contrast to the speculative market of the 1980s which largely stemmed from Japanese buying.

At that time, two van Goghs led the canvases whose prices stunned the art world. In 1987, "Sunflowers" sold for more than $40 million, while "Irises" went for $54 million.

The record for a van Gogh remains $82.5 million, set in 1990 at Christie's for "Portrait of Dr. Gachet."

The fall art auctions got off to a solid start on Tuesday as Christie's achieved the second-largest result ever for Impressionist and modern art, with new records set for paintings by Matisse, Pissarro and Signac all factoring in the sale's $395 million total.

(Editing by Arthur Spiegelman and John O'Callaghan)