Christ painting sells for $45m

Auctioneers have sold a portrait of a bloodshot eyed Jesus Christ for $45.4 million.
Sotheby’s in New York expected The Man of Sorrows – painted by the celebrated artist Sandro Botticelli in around 1500 – to sell for $40 million. In the end, two phone bidders competed for the work, pushing the price up by over $5m against the pre-sale estimate.

Botticelli was a High Renaissance artist from Florence. He lived from 1445 to 1510 under the lush patronage of the Medici family, as well as the Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola, and he's best known for earlier, mythological scenes of goddesses in billowy gowns or perched nude atop seashells, as in his works The Birth of Venus and Primavera.
ILLUMINATING: Cezanne's famous picture, depicting two card players, sold for $250m.
His 1480 portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel caught attention in 2021. It was also sold by Sotheby’s for a mouth-watering $92.2m.
The 5 most expensive paintings bought at an auction:
1) $450.3m for Salvator...