Pablo Picasso’s Sylvette has become the most expensive painting ever sold at auction in Australia.

The artwork went under the hammer last night at Kensington’s Deutscher-Menzies Gallery and had been estimated to sell for between $5 and $7 million. In the end it sold to an International buyer for $6.9 million.

The previous record for a work sold at auction in Australia was set last year, when Brett Whiteley’s The Olgas For Ernest Giles fetched $3.48 million.

The actual bid for Sylvette was $5.75 million, but the price reached $6.9 million including the buyers’ premium of 20 per cent.

The artwork was composed in 1954.

The subject of the painting is artist Sylvette David.

Posted: 06|19|08 at 8:32 am. Filed under: Auction News.