1921 Churchill painting sold

A PAINTING by wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that was gifted to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis sold for $1.85 million (R26m) at a Phillips auction in New York this week.

The Moat, Breccles, a signed 1921 oil landscape, went for within its pre-sale estimate price of between $1.5m and $2m. The sale was far less than the $11.6m netted by another Churchill painting sold by Angelina Jolie at Christie’s last March.

Churchill kept The Moat, Breccles for 40 years before offering it in 1961, four years before his death, to his friend Onassis. The tycoon was so proud of his gift that he hung it in a place of honour – behind the bar of his yacht – alongside works by Vermeer, Gauguin, El Greco and Pissarro.

When Onassis died in 1975, seven years after his marriage to Jackie Kennedy, the yacht was sold and everything on board placed in storage, until his heirs recently decided to part with the painting.