Warhol artwork fails to sell

Warhol is famed for his Pop Art works

A work by Andy Warhol has failed to reach its asking price at a London auction, having been expected to fetch up to £400,000.

Warhol, who pioneered 1960s Pop Art, painted his artwork $ in 1982.

Gauguin's oil painting, La Petite Laveuse, got the highest price of £164,000, at Bonhams contemporary art sale.

Roy Lichtenstein works were also sold, but an Auguste Rodin sculpture expected to get up to £60,000 also remained on the shelf.

However two paintings by Claude Pissaro, including Le Lac de Monsouris, sold for £3,687 each.

Two thirds of the sale's offerings were from private collections.

La Petite Laveuse is believed to have been owned by Amedee Schuffenecker, who dealt in Gauguin's paintings after acquiring them from his brother, who was a friend of the artist.

Paul Gauguin's artwork fetched the highest price

Seven Lichtenstein works were for sale, but only three sold for £7,500 each. They are taken from his Interiors series of eight images which depict rooms inside a house.

They were produced in 1990 at the latter end of the US artist's successful career.

The bronze Rodin statue Pierre de Wiessant was originally made in 1885 as a study for the figure of de Wiessant from the monument Les Bourgeois de Calais.

Three of Lichtenstein's works sold

Other oil paintings which sold include Max Oppenheimer's Vienna String Quartet for £71,289, and Fausto Pirandello Bagnanti's Tetti di Roma, which fetched £54,970 - more than double its pre-sale estimate.

And a limited edition etching by Pablo Picasso, Sculpteur et Trois Danseuses Sculptees, was bought for £5,531, while a ceramic ewer by the same artist fetched £2,704.

Contemporary works under the hammer included a rare complete set of four prints by Op Art artist Bridget Riley, but they also did not attract buyers.

A large selection of contemporary photography by Vanessa Beecroft, Wolfgang Tillmans, Candida Hofer, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Gunther Forg and Thomas Ruff also featured.