Angelina Jolie’s painting of Morocco, which was owned by the British wartime prime minister Sir Winston Churchill, sold for 8.1 million euros ($9.7 million) at auction. In 1943, while in Morocco during World War II, Churchill painted the “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque,” which he later gave to former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The two leaders were in Morocco for the Casablanca Meeting, where they debated how to fight Nazi Germany and free Western Europe.
The selling price was nearly four times the highest pre-sale estimate, according to the auction house, making it a world auction record. The price also exceeded the previous high for a Churchill painting, which was just over 2 million euros.
The art historian Barry Phipps wrote in the Christies catalog, “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque is generally regarded as Sir Winston Churchill’s most significant painting, with its tale interwoven into the history of the twentieth century.”
Before entering politics, Churchill was a career army officer who began painting at the age of 40. His passion for the translucent light of Marrakesh, far from the political storms and drab skies of London, began in the 1930s, when most of Morocco was a French protectorate, and he returned to the North African country six times over the next 23 years.
“You cannot come all this way to North Africa without seeing Marrakech,” Churchill is believed to have told Roosevelt.
“I must be with you when you see the sunset on the Atlas Mountains.”
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Churchill stayed an extra day in Morocco after the US delegation had left and painted the view of the Koutoubia Mosque framed by the mountains. He sent it to Roosevelt for his birthday. It was sold by the Roosevelt family in the 1950s and passed through several hands until being acquired by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in 2011.
Data source: AP