Gauguin painting sells for record $300mlnFebruary 7, 2015 - 11:08 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - A painting of two Tahitian girls by the French artist Gauguin has been sold for $300mln, making it the most expensive work of art ever sold, BBC News reports. “Nafea Faa Ipoipo, or When Will You Marry?” was painted in 1892 and had been owned by a Swiss collector.Unconfirmed reports suggest it was sold to a museum in Qatar. The small oil-rich state paid the previous highest price for a painting, a work by Paul Cezanne which sold for $259mln. Before its sale, the Gaugin artwork had been owned by Rudolf Staechelin, a collector from Basel. For decades it had been on loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel but Staechelin decided to sell the painting after a disagreement with the museum. Staechelin told the New York Times he would not divulge the identity of the buyer. It was not immediately clear where the sale had taken place. However the paper, which first reported the sale, quoted sources saying the painting had been sold to Qatari buyers. Officials in Qatar have not yet confirmed the purchase. The sheikhdom's royal family has in recent years spent vast amounts of money on Western art. Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani, a former minister of culture who died last year, lavished more than $1bn of the country's money on artworks. Qatar sponsored a 2012 Damien Hirst retrospective in the UK which later moved to the country's capital Doha, and has invested large sums of money financing museums of Islamic and modern Arab art. Photo: EPA Related links: Top stories Paris Center Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne will host the screening of Sergei Parajanov’s "Triptych" on December 15. The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. Partner news | Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. |