Paul Gauguin’s painting sold for record $300 million

A painting by Paul Gauguin, a post-impressionist painter of France, has been sold for 30 million U.S. dollars, a record in the history of art transactions.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that the seller Rudolf Staechelin, 62, sold the 1892 oil painting entitled “When Will You Marry?” for about 300 million dollars, citing sources in the art community.

The seller did not disclose the selling price, but those inside and outside the art community judge that the Gauguin painting was sold for about 300 million dollars. Todd Rubin, an art consultant in New York, said that he heard that the Gauguin was put on sale in late last year and the selling price was somewhere between upper 200 million dollars to 300 million dollars.

The previous record before "The When Will You Marry?" was "The Card Players" by French painter Paul Cezanne, which was sold for about 250 million dollars in an individual transaction in 2011. The artwork that was auctioned off at the highest price was ‘Three Studies of Lucian Freud` by British painter Francis Bacon, which was sold for 142.4 million dollars in 2013.

The buyer of the Gauguin is believed to be the royal family of Qatar, the oil rich nation in the Middle East. The Qatari royal family recently bought "White Center" by American painter Mark Losco, and "Lullaby Spring" by British artist Damien Steven Hirst. The family also reportedly purchased "The Card Players" as well.

Gauguin’s "When Will You Marry?" is portraits of two native Tahitian women in South Pacific. The painting was exhibited for nearly half a century at Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland where Rudolf Staechelin resides. As Kunstmuseum Basel is under renovation through 2016, the painting will be moved to The Fondation Beyeler located on the outskirts of Basel and exhibited there for the time being.