Hollywood star Angelina Jolie sold a picture painted by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at Christie's auction house in London for more than eight million pounds. The painting “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque” fetched 8.29 million pounds (the equivalent of around 9.57 million euros) on Monday evening – a record price according to the auction house, which had reckoned with 1.5 to 2.5 million pounds for a work of the politician.
Image: APA (AFP)
The painting is considered to be Churchill's only work that he painted during the Second World War – namely in 1943 after the Casablanca Conference in Morocco, at which Churchill met with the then US President Franklin Roosevelt. The Briton is said to have given the picture to Roosevelt, whose family owned the work for a long time. How the US actress Jolie came into possession of the work remained unclear.
Churchill (1874-1965), who ruled Great Britain during the Second World War and again in the 1950s, was considered a passionate artist in addition to his political career, who painted hundreds of pictures during his lifetime.
