A colorful painting of two Tahitian women by Paul Gauguin has reportedly been sold by a Swiss family foundation to a group of state museums in Qatar for nearly $300 million, a record sum for a single work of art, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The price would best the roughly $250 million that Qatar paid three years ago for Paul Cezanne’s “The Card Players,” and underscores the purchasing power and ambitions of the nation in the United Arab Emirates.
The New York Times reported the amount and said two dealers pegged Qatar Museums as the buyer of Gauguin’s lush, 1892 double portrait, “Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?).”
The Gauguin’s seller is Rudolf Staechelin, a Sotheby’s retiree who lives in Basel, Switzerland, and oversees the Staechelin Family Trust, which includes a collection of at least 20 major Post-Impressionist works amassed by his namesake father during World War I.
