The painting, embroiled in a legal battle and sold by court order, set a personal record for the artist and surpassed its estimate of $47.5 million reais ($9.25 million) to scoop 57.5 million reais ($11.2 million) as the highest of 19 bids.
The result at auction supersedes the previous records for the most expensive work by a Brazilian artist, pipping Alberto de Veiga Guignard’s "Vaso de flores" (5.7 million reais, 2015) and Lygia Clark’s "Modulated Surface No. 4" (5.3 million reais, 2013) to the top spot.
