Yahoo News Angelina Jolie sells wartime painting by Sir Winston Churchill for more than £8 million
Workers adjust an oil on canvas painting by Sir Winston Churchill painted in January 1943
(AP)Angelina Jolie has sold a wartime painting by Sir Winston Churchill for a record-setting amount of £8.2million at auction.
The landscape painting, titled Tower Of The Koutoubia Mosque, is thought to be the only second painting Sir Winston did as he led the country through the Second World War.
The 1943 work was sold at Christie’s auction house at a price that beat the previous record of £1.8 million for a Churchill painting.
Its pre-sale estimate was £1.5 million to £2.5 million.
The painting was gifted by Sir Winston, who was a keen painter, to then US president Franklin D Roosevelt, as a memento of the men’s visit there following the Casablanca Conference of 1943, according to Christie’s.
The painting was sold by Mr Roosevelt’s son after the president’s death in 1945 and had several owners before it was bought by Jolie and her former husband Brad Pitt in 2011.
Christie’s previously said Sir Winston created around 45 paintings depicting Moroccan landscapes after he was encouraged to visit the country by his art tutor Sir John Lavery.
However Tower Of The Koutoubia Mosque is the only painting the wartime leader created between 1939 and 1945, according to the auction house.
Throughout his life Sir Winston produced hundreds of canvases and his work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy.
The buyer of Tower Of The Koutoubia Mosque has not immediately been identified.
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