An oil painting by Belgian artist René Magritte on Tuesday set a new record for the most expensive Surrealist work, selling for US$121mil (RM541mil) in New York, auction house Christie's said.
Magritte's "L'empire des lumières," painted in 1954, sold for the record-breaking amount after 10 minutes of bidding at Christie's 20th Century Evening Sale.
The work, auctioned as part of the as part of Mica: the collection of Mica Ertegun, is one of 27 paintings by the artist by the same title - 17 oil paintings and 10 gouaches.
The large oil painting, measuring 146 centimetres in height by 114 centimetres in width, was labelled the "crown jewel of Ertegun's panoramic collection" by the auction house ahead of the sale.
It shows a suburban streetscape, with a house lit by a singular lamppost facing a body of water. Above the profile of the house and the trees that surround it, a light blue sky dotted with white clouds fills the upper part of the canvas.
The surrealist artist, who lived from 1898 to 1967, made the painting under unusual circumstances. He promised the work to three different buyers after showing it as part of the 1954 Venice Biennale to much fanfare.
According to Christie's, in the end a fourth buyer acquired the painting - Peggy Guggenheim - and Magritte ended up creating three more versions of the work "to appease the other disappointed parties." One of the three new works was the one sold on Tuesday. – dpa
