Little Seen Van Gogh Painting Fetches 16.9 Million Pounds at Auction

A Sotheby's auction in early February reached a record amount in part due to a Van Gogh painting which fetched 16.9 million pounds, reports Bloomberg.  The Van Gogh was the second most expensive painting of the London auction, which raked in a grand total of 169.5 million pounds (US $266.8 million.)

The first most expensive painting of the evening was "Boulevard Montmartre" by Camille Pissarro.  It was estimated to go at 10 million pounds but when the hammer fell the price was 19 million pounds.  About 60% of the auction pieces went for prices higher than Sotheby's estimate, which indicates that the world art market is coming back strong.

Van Gogh's "The Man Is At Sea (L’Homme Est en Mer)" was estimated to bring in a mere 8 million pounds.  This is the canvas' second time at Sotheby's.  In 1989, it was sold in the New York branch of Sotheby's for a piddling $7.15 million. Things get a little muddied as to the painting's history after 1989. According to Sotheby's, it was bought by an anonymous art consigner in 1993 and sold to Holocaust survivor and art dealer Jan Krugier.  Krugier died in 2008 but his extensive art collection did not go on sale until this year.

Van Gogh painted the woman and baby at home waiting for Daddy in front of the hearth while he was an inmate at the asylum in Saint-Remy, France in 1889, about a year before the artist's death.  Van Gogh's paintings were considered worthless in his lifetime.  The first owner of the painting was Dr. Paul Gachet, Vincent's final therapist and one of his models.  It has had several wealthy owners after the good doctor's family sold the painting in the early 1900s.  It was last exhibited publicly in Paris in 1905.