Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl fetches nearly £1m

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The work by Siberian-born artist Vladimir Tretchikoff was sold for nearly £1 million - nearly double its expected price - at auction in London on Wednesday, BBC reported.

The original painting of the Chinese Girl, thought to be the most reproduced print in the world, was bought by billionaire British businessman and jeweller Laurence Graff for £982,050.

The sum, which includes a 12 percent buyer's premium, was around twice what had been predicted by auction house Bonhams. It was thought the portrait of a young Chinese girl with green-hued skin and ruby lips would fetch up to £500,000.

Graff, chairman of Graff Diamonds International, owns the Delaire Graff Estate near Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, South Africa, where the picture will go on public display with the rest of his art collection.

Forbes magazine put Graff's net worth at US$4.3 billion this month, making him the eighth richest man in Britain and the 299th in the world.

The 74-year-old billionaire has more than 20 stores worldwide, including new outposts in Hong Kong, Gstaad and Dubai. The Sultan and Queen of Brunei, Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump are listed as clients.

The sale, a Bonhams representative added, fetched more than double the highest price - £384,000 - previously raised at auction by a Tretchikoff work.

Tretchikoff, who grew up in Russia and Shanghai, eventually settled in South Africa in 1946 and completed the Chinese Girl in Cape Town in 1953.

The picture, which has been described as one of the most important pop culture images in Britain, was inspired by Monika Sing-Lee, then 17, who modelled for Tretchikoff after he spotted her at work in her uncle's launderette in Cape Town.

Millions of reproductions of the picture, also known as the Green Lady because of the unusual blue-green skin tone of the subject, have been sold since it was painted in the 1950s.

In his 1973 memoir Pigeon's Luck, the artist said he had put his "heart and soul" into a painting he hoped had "caught the essence of Chinese womanhood."

Its popularity led to Tretchikoff, who died in 2006, being labelled the "king of kitsch" - while his foundation describes him as "the people's painter." Tretchikoff's other notable works include Weeping Rose, Blue Monday, and The Dying Swan, which featured the dancer Alicia Markova.

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