SOUTINE SETS RECORD AT CHRISTIE’S

Christie’s International sold Chaim Soutine’s 1923 portrait of an emaciated baker boy to an unidentified buyer for a record £5 million ($9.4 million), kicking off a week of auctions of Impressionist and modern works and contemporary art in London, Bloomberg reports. Le Patissier de Cagnes, once owned by filmmaker Alexander Korda, was sold by a European collector who bought it in 1962 for £28,000 ($52,000) at a Sotheby’s auction in London, Christie’s says. Monday night’s winning bid was the highest price ever paid for a painting by Soutine, whose works rarely are sold at auctions. The sale took in a total of £41 million ($76 million).