Picasso painting smashes Australian auction record
Published June 19th, 2008
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.
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