LONDON -- A long-lost portrait of a Nigerian princess dubbed the "African Mona Lisa" sold at auction in London on Wednesday for £1.2 million ($1.7 million), exceeding estimates and setting a record for the artist.
The 1974 painting of Adetutu "Tutu" Ademiluyi, by Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu, was expected to fetch up to £300,000 ($414,000) when it went under the hammer at Bonhams auction house.
It described the painting of an Ife royal princess which recently turned up in a London flat after not being seen in decades as "rare and remarkable."
"The portrait of Tutu is a national icon in Nigeria, and of huge cultural significance," said Giles Peppiatt, Bonham's director of modern African art.
He uncovered the work after a family in north London contacted him following lucrative recent sales of Nigerian artworks at auction.
Peppiatt added the family were "pretty astounded" to learn it was "a missing masterpiece."
"It is very exciting to have played a part in the discovery and sale of this remarkable work," he said.
Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri told AFP earlier this month that the painting had taken on almost mythical status in his native Nigeria where it was thought of as "the African Mona Lisa."
"It has been a legendary painting for 40 years, everybody keeps talking about Tutu, saying 'where is Tutu?'" he said after a viewing at Bonhams.
"He wasn't just painting the girl, he was painting the whole tradition. It's a symbol of hope and regeneration to Nigeria, it's a symbol of the phoenix rising," Okri added.
The painter Enwonwu, who died in 1994, is considered the father of Nigerian modernism. He made three paintings of "Tutu," the locations of all of which had been a mystery until the recent discovery.
The works became symbols of peace following the clash of ethnic groups in the Nigerian–Biafran conflict of the late 1960s.
Enwonwu's work "Negritude", also painted in the 1970s, sold for £100,000 ($138,000)in the same sale.
The auction was broadcast live to a Bonhams site in Lagos, where bidders were able to participate in real time.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LONDON - A Pablo Picasso portrait of his muse Marie-Therese Walter with future lover Dora Maar emerging from the shadows fetched £50 million (57 million euros, $69 million) at a London sale Wednesday, a European auction record for a painting.
The 1937 "Femme au Beret et a la Robe Quadrillee (Marie-Therese Walter)" beat expectations it would sell for £36 million (41 million euros, $50 million) at the sale of impressionist, surrealist and modern art at auction house Sotheby's.
It was the first time the oil on canvas had emerged on the international art market and headlined the auctioneer's first major sale of the year, it said.
The identity of the seller, and its new owner, were not released.
"It's an incredibly important museum quality picture," James Mackie, director of the impressionist and modern art department at Sotheby's, told AFP last week.
"It comes from a key era in Picasso's career, 1937, when he makes the great painting 'Guernica'," he added, referring to the masterpiece which portrayed the horrors of the Nazi bombardment of a Basque city during the Spanish civil war.
The painting also has a strong autobiographical appeal, according to Mackie.
The main subject, Marie-Therese Walter, was the Spanish painter's "long time lover and muse".
But the looming figure of Dora Maar, whom he met in 1936, emerges in the shadows behind Marie-Therese, explained Mackie.
Several masterpieces have reached astronomical prices at recent auctions, fuelled by the opening of major museums in the Gulf and the purchasing power of collectors from emerging countries.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman acquired Leonardo da Vinci work "Salvator Mundi" for $450 million in November 2017.
"The market for masterpieces is at an unprecedented levels, and this picture certainly sits very much in that masterpiece category," said Mackie.
Three other Picasso works went under the hammer, including "Le Matador", which sold for £16.5 million (18.6 million euros, $22.7 million).
Sotheby's also sold 3 rediscovered Salvador Dali paintings, including "Maison pour Erotomane" (circa 1932), which went for £3.5 million after a five-way bidding battle, it said.
"Gradiva" (1931), depicting the mythological figure who became central to surrealist thought, fetched £2.7 million (3 million euros, $3.7 million).
Both small oil works were in a private collection in Argentina, having been bought directly from the artist in the 1930s by his friend, Argentinean countess Cuevas de Vera.
"They are a rediscovery, which is incredibly exciting," Mackie said of the works.
Sotheby's said the 36 lots sold Wednesday, which also included a 1912 Umberto Boccioni painting, totaled an above-expected £136 million
source: news.abs-cbn.com
