LONDON (AFP) — A nearly 300-year-old masterpiece by French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau that had been presumed destroyed sold for a record price Tuesday, auction house Christie's said.
In the same sale, three drawings by the Spanish master Francisco de Goya, which experts had feared lost for 131 years, sold for more than four million pounds.
Flemish-born Watteau's "La Surprise," which was painted in around 1718 and last recorded to have been seen in 1848, sold for 12.4 million pounds (15.5 million euros or 24.4 million dollars), the highest price ever for a French Old Master painting sold at auction.
It also shattered the previous high for a Watteau, when "Conteur" sold for 2.4 million pounds in December 2000.
"This is not only one of the most extraordinary rediscoveries of recent years, but also the most expensive French Old Master painting ever sold at auction," said Richard Knight and Paul Raison, both directors at Christie's.
They described Watteau as "one of the most influential artists in the history of European art."
Christie's said "La Surprise" was likely originally painted, along with "L'Accord Parfait," for Nicolas Henin, an advisor to the child King Louis XV and a close friend of Watteau's.
"L'Accord Parfait" is now on display in the Los Angeles Museum of Art, and "La Surprise" was discovered last year during a Christie's valuation in the corner of a drawing room of a British country house.
Also sold in the Christie's auction were three Goya works, one of which -- "Bajar Rinendo" ("Down They Come") -- went for 2.3 million pounds, a world record for a Goya drawing at auction.
The drawing, from the album "Witches and Women," shows four women fighting as they fly through the air.
The second, "The Constable Lampinos Stitched Inside A Dead Horse," from the album "Images of Spain" and depicting a peasants' revolt in Saragossa in the 18th century, sold for 769,250 pounds.
A third, "Repentance," from the same album, shows a seated man praying before a crucifix, eyes heavenward and mouth open like Edvard Munch's "Scream" figure. It fetched 959,650 pounds.
The works were last recorded at an auction of 105 drawings from Goya's personal notebooks in Paris in 1877. They were offered for sale from a Swiss private collection.
The drawings are still on the mounts made specifically for the 1877 auction and were in excellent condition as they had never been framed or exposed to light.
Christie's said they represent "the most important grouping of sketches by the artist to be consigned to auction in over 30 years."
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