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Cezanne still-life fetches £18m
The stunning Cezanne painting was stolen 21 years ago |
A masterpiece by French painter Paul Cezanne has been sold for £18.1m at an auction in London.
The still-life of a pewter pitcher and fruit - stolen in the US in 1978 and finally recovered earlier this year - was sold to an anonymous telephone bidder.
And Pablo Picasso's Young Girl with a Boat, one of 25 Picasso works collected by murdered fashion designer Gianni Versace, reached £3.7m at the standing-room only Sotheby's auction.
Picasso's Woman on a Chair fetched £3.3m |
The work was the best-known among the five oil paintings and 20 drawings by Picasso formerly owned by Gianni Versace and sold at the auction for a total of £10.8m.
The Cezanne work - Bouilloire et Fruits - had been expected to fetch between £9m and £12m.
Undisclosed location
It had been stolen from the Massachusetts home of a relative of its original owner, wealthy American paediatrician Dr Harry Bakwin, 21 years ago.
But it was recovered when police swooped on a undisclosed location earlier this year.
The painting was completed between 1888 and 1890 during the peak of Cezanne's impressionist career.
Versace was murdered at his home in 1997 |
The work is said to show the artist's role as a precursor to the Cubist movement.
And Sotheby's said it was one of the most important paintings offered for sale in London this decade.
Of Versace's collection, one of Picasso's most well known works, Woman Sitting on a Chair, a 1938 oil portrait of his mistress Dora Maar, fetched £3.3m, though it had been expected to sell for between £4m and £6m.
Versace - who was gunned down, aged 50, on 15 July 1997 outside his house in Miami Beach, Florida - was an avid purchaser of impressionist and contemporary art.
His set of Picassos, mostly acquired in the 1980s, represent only a small proportion of his whole collection which also includes works by Henri Matisee, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel.
Mansion up for sale
The Versace family say they are being sold to slim down the size of the multi-millionaire's huge estate.
"I think it would be unreasonable to expect the family to keep everything that Gianni collected over his lifetime," said family spokesman Lou Colasuonno.
The auction of the Italian designer's Miami mansion is also being handled by Sotheby's. The asking price for the 12-bedroomed beachfront Mediterranean-style palazzo is said to be £14.3m.
Suspected serial killer Andrew Cunanan shot Versace twice in the head at the gate to the house two years ago.
A search for Cunanan, who was wanted for the murders of four other men, ended nine days later when he was found dead. It is thought he killed himself.
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17 Nov 99 | UK |
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Lost Cezanne under the hammer |
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09 Nov 99 | Americas |
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Monet waterlilies fetch $22.5m |
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11 May 99 | Americas |
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Cezanne fetches fruity $60m |
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30 Dec 97 | Despatches |
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Police set to release Versace files |
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09 Dec 97 | World |
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Fashion's tribute to Versace |
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Internet links: |
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Picasso - Official site |
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Gianni Versace - Fan site |
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Sotheby's |
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Web Museum: Cezanne |
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Artchive: Cezanne |
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