Van Gogh fetches $66.3M

NEW YORK – A painting Vincent van Gogh created while briefly working side by side with his friend Paul Gauguin in the south of France brought in $66.3 million at auction Tuesday.

“The Allee of Alyscamps” was offered at Sotheby’s impressionist and modern art sale. The autumnal scene was painted in 1888 during a two-month period when van Gogh and Gauguin worked together in Arles, France.

The painting, which had a presale estimate of more than $40 million, was sold to an Asian private collector, Sotheby’s said. The auction record for a van Gogh, who died in 1890, is $82.5 million.

The sale also featured six paintings spanning four decades of Claude Monet’s career. The highlight was “Water Lilies,” a 1905 version of his beloved pond and gardens at his home in Giverny, France. It fetched $54 million, topping its high presale estimate of $45 million.

Monet’s 1908 painting of Venice with a view of the Palazzo Ducale on the Grand Canal fetched more than $23 million. It was confiscated by the Nazis from the noted collector Jakob Goldschmidt and was reclaimed by his son in 1960. It descended to a grandson, who died last year.