Christie’s, auction house sold the artist’s painting of a laundress for a record-smashing $22,416,000 on Tuesday.”The Laundress,” the most expensive painting of the annual autumn art auctions at Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s, also achieved the highest price at the first of two weeks of critical sales, coming in right in the middle of its $20 million to $25 million pre-sale estimate.

The moving portrait of a local woman gazing out a window from 1886-87 easily eclipsed the old record for Toulouse-Lautrec of $14,522,500, set in 1997, and was a critical factor in the success of Christies’ Impressionist and modern sale, which took in $160,931,200 including commission.

Posted: 11|2|05 at 9:33 am. Filed under: US News.