A previously unknown work by French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir depicting his son Jean sold for €1.8m ($2.08m) at a Paris auction, according to the auction house.
The oil painting – L’enfant et ses jouets – Gabrielle et le fils de l’artiste, Jean (The Child and His Toys – Gabrielle and the artist’s son, Jean) – had never been exhibited or sold before.
It belonged to Jean’s godmother Jeanne Baudot, a friend and student of Renoir’s, who passed the painting on to her inheritors.
Believed to have been painted before 1910, it features the artist’s second son, who went on to become an Oscar-winning film-maker, shown sitting with his nanny.
Pascal Perrin, an art historian and Renoir expert, praised the “exceptional condition of the work, which has undergone no restoration” while presenting the canvas.
The painting had been valued at between 1m and 1.5m euros and was acquired by an “international buyer”, Drouot, the auction house behind the sale, said on Tuesday.
Renoir’s son Jean, born in 1894, went on to receive a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975, several years before he died aged 84. His works include 1930s classic La Grande Illusion, following two French prisoners of war trying to escape German captivity during the first world war.
The high-end art market has dipped in recent years, but lately, record-breaking sales have indicated a revival in demand.
A self-portrait by celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo sold for $54.66m in New York last week, a record for a painting by a woman, two nights after a Gustav Klimt canvas fetched $236.4m – the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
