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Paris: A Vincent van Gogh painting of a Paris street scene fetched €14 million ($16.5 million) at auction, only to be put back under the hammer and sell for a lower amount.
Auction house Sotheby’s said there had been a glitch with its online bidding system during the first sale of the painting, Street Scene in Montmartre, on Thursday.
Street scene in Montmartre, an 1887 painting by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh, at Sotheby’s auction house in Paris.Credit:AP
The painting received a highest bid of €11.25 million the second time around. With costs, it sold for €13.1 million.
That exceeded the €5 to €8 million the auction house had estimated for the work, painted in 1887 while the artist was lodging with his brother Theo in the French capital.
An 1889 self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh.Credit:AP
The sale was highly anticipated as it was one of the few paintings by the Dutch Impressionist master to still have been in private hands.
Sotheby’s said the work had remained in a collection of a French family for more than 100 years, out of the public eye.
The auction took place in Paris with bidding online or by phone from Paris, New York and Hong Kong.
The painting depicts a man and woman strolling arm-in-arm towards a group of children, past a ramshackle fence with a windmill, named the Pepper Mill, in the background. It is part of a series Van Gogh produced of scenes in Montmartre, a hilly district of Paris now dominated by the Sacre Coeur church.