London (AFP)
The most famous of the paintings painted by the former British Prime Minister of Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was auctioned Monday in London for 7 million pounds sterling (8.1 million euros) by the auction house Christie's.
"The tower of the Koutoubia mosque" (1943) from Marrakech, a picture painted on the occasion of an official visit to the Moroccan city during World War II, thus pulverized the estimates (from 1.7 to 2.8 million d 'euros).
The oil on canvas offered for sale by American actress Angelina Jolie is considered "to be Sir Winston Churchill's most important painting" because of its "interweaving in the history of the twentieth century," said the historian of British art Barry Phipps in the catalog.
Churchill gave it to Roosevelt at the time.
Sold by one of Roosevelt's sons in the 1950s, the painting changed hands several times, before landing in 2011 in the collection of Hollywood couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
The Conservative leader started painting late, when he was 40 years old.
Whoever liked to flee political storms and the grayness of London had discovered the light of the ocher city of Marrakech in the 1930s, at the time of the French protectorate, and made a total of six trips there in 23 years.
A period press photograph shows Roosevelt and Churchill together admiring from the Taylor Villa the sunset over the panorama that will inspire the painting.
At the same sale, two other paintings by Churchill took off the auction: a landscape of Marrakech sold for 1.55 million pounds (1.8 million euros) while it was estimated between 300,000 and 500,000 pounds and a view of St Paul's Cathedral in London estimated at between £ 200,000 and £ 300,000, sold for £ 880,000 (€ 1.2 million).
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