Real Raphael relic smashes canvas art records
Published on: 06-Jul-2007
A canvas art painting by renaissance master Raphael that was once viewed as a probable fake has sold for £18 million after it was deemed to be authentic after all.The exquisite oil-on-canvas portrait of Florentine ruler Lorenzo de Medici had not been seen in public since it was last sold at auction in 1968.
At that time it came to market in poor condition and was deemed unlikely to be genuine - allowing American art collector Ira Spanierman to pick up the piece for just $325.
Three years later, however, art experts determined the work was in fact real, leaving Spanierman sitting on a sizeable fortune.
The piece was expected to fetch between £10 and 15 million as it came to auction at Christie's in London, but far surpassed that figure, easily beating the previous record for one of the Italian artists' works, which stood at £5.3 million for a black crayon drawing sold in 1996.
Richard Knight, international director of Christie's Old Master department, commented: "The importance of the artist and the sitter, together with the provenance and the historical context behind this painting's creation, make it one of the most significant old master pictures to be offered at auction for a generation."
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