Having witnessed “impressive bidding”, the artwork was eventually purchased by renowned art collector Manoj Israni.
It was the highest price achieved in the sale.
According to AstaGuru, the portrait showcasing Egan, a Hungarian army doctor in his uniform, garnered noticeable traction since the theme intertwined with the artist s personal life and had emotional sentiments attached to it.
“They shared a spiritual bond, which inspired her to capture his presence in glory,” the auction house said.
The painting was created as a parting gift to her husband s family, after the couple decided to shift base from Hungary to India in 1939, and then to Lahore in 1941.
By James Tarmy
During a lovely spring week in May 2019, in what now feels like the halcyon days of pre-Covid life, seven paintings and three sculptures sold for a brisk $605 million.
Flash forward to this year, when it took 12 months and a 67-million-year-old dinosaur to amass top 10 results that still only managed to total $408 million.
To be clear: The top of the auction market is never a great indicator of how the art market is doing; it’s like trying to gauge the strength of the U.S. car market by looking at Bugatti sales. This has always been true, and it’s particularly salient during the pandemic as jittery sellers turn to pre-arranged (and publicly untraceable) private sales instead of riskier public auctions.