Toyen painting sells for record high price at Czech auction

Prague, Oct 4 (CTK) - The Toyen painting "La Dame de Pique" was sold for 78.65 million crowns including an auction surcharge at a Prague auction, which is a new Czech auction record, Aneta Kopecka from the Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery told CTK.

The starting bid was 29.9 million crowns.

Toyen (1902-1980), born Marie Cerminova, created La Dame de Pique (The Queen of Spades) shortly after her arrival in Paris in 1926; it comes from a period that collectors value highly.

"An oil painting by Toyen of a similar gallery quality and importance has never before been offered at the Czech or world auction market," the auction hall said.

La Dame de Pique beat the previous Czech auction record of Oskar Kokoschka's painting "Prague - View from the Monastery of the Knights of the Cross with a Red Star" from 1934 that was sold for 78.5 million crowns, including the surcharge, last October.

The previous most expensive work by Toyen sold at a Czech auction was the painting Twilight in Rainforest, for which a customer paid 36 million crowns, including surcharge, in 2017.

Other works by Czech artists were also sold for prices amounting to several million crowns at an auction in the Prague Manes gallery yesterday.

Winter Flower (Zimni kvet) by Jakub Schikaneder (1855-1924) was auctioned off for about 8.35 million crowns, while the starting price was 2.7 million, and Children in the Grass (Deti v trave) oil painting by Josef Čapek (1887-1945) was sold for 7.9 million crowns.

"This is Čapek's most expensive picture with a motif of playing children," Kopecka said.

Artist Pravoslav Kotik (1889-1970) also scored an auction record for his works as his painting entitled Recreation (Rekreace) from 1946, with the starting price of 850,000 crowns, was finally sold for 3.35 million crowns.