Van Gogh painting of Montmartre, Paris sold for record 13 million euros

One of the few paintings of Vincent Van Gogh still in private hands, the Street scene in Montmartre sold for 13 million euros at an auction on Thursday in one of the most anticipated sales of modern works this year.

Sotheby's Paris employees pose with the 1887 painting of a Paris street scene "Scene de rue a Montmartre" by Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh which will be presented to the public for the first time after spending more than a century behind closed doors in the private collection of a French family, France, February 24, 2021. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann REUTERS - CHRISTIAN HARTMANN

Street scene in Montmartre by Dutch artist Van Gogh was considered a "record sale" for the artist in France, Sotheby's aunction house said after the live-streamed event in Paris on Thursday.

It was the highlight of 33 works on sale from masters including Degas, Magritte, Modigliani, Klee, Rodin and his muse Camille Claudel.

The 1887 work by the Dutch post-Impressionist master, one of more than 200 paintings he made during two years spent in Paris, portrays one of the windmills that dotted Montmartre when it was still just a village on the northern outskirts of the capital.

A couple stroll and two children play in front of a wooden fence and leafless trees depicted in the characteristic tan and brown tones of his "Dutch palette", punctuated by a bright red flag blowing above the mill.

The period marked a turning point in Van Gogh's career as he began exploring expressionist techniques and new uses of colour in the final years of his life, before his suicide in 1890 at the age of just 37.

An employee puts on display a painting titled "Scène de rue a Montmartre" (Impasse des deux frères et le moulin à Poivre- 1887), by Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, at the Sotheby's auction house in Paris. © AFP/Stéphane de Sakutin

It was estimated between five to eight million euros and while not considered one of his masterpieces.

The last Van Gogh sold at a public auction, Labourer in a Field from 1889, went for 81 million dollars at a New York sale in 2017.

Specialists knew of the work but it was only catalogued as a black-and-white photograph and had not appeared in public since it was acquired by a French family around 1920.

"Paintings from the Montmartre series are rare: It's very likely to garner a lot of interest from private buyers, the major Van Gogh collectors all around the world, and probably from institutions as well," said Aurelie Vandevoorde, Sotheby's head of Impressionist and modern art in Paris.

Claudia Mercier, an auctioneer at the Mirabaud Mercier auction house that was hired by the painting's owners, said it had been examined by the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, "which has shown serious interest in the work".

(with AFP)