2nd Van Gogh Sold for 2nd Highest Price

LONDON — A Vincent Van Gogh painting that took the artist less than one day to create was sold at auction today to an undisclosed bidder for $20.23 million to become the second-most-expensive picture ever auctioned.

His masterpiece “Sunflowers” set the record in March when it was bought for $39.9 million by a Tokyo-based insurance firm.

Sold today at Christie’s auction house was “Le Pont de Trinquetaille,” a rendering of an iron bridge in the southern French city of Arles that art experts said took Van Gogh little more than a morning to paint.

It is one of at least five large paintings he completed in a seven-day creative whirlwind in October, 1888--only two months before he sliced off his ear and less than two years before the poverty-stricken painter shot himself to death at the age of 37.

Art experts say Van Gogh’s painting ranks among the best of his works, and it has been widely displayed in museums--most recently on loan from the American family that sold it today, the Kramarskys, who brought their vast collection to the United States from the Netherlands before World War II.

“It’s certainly one of the best pictures Van Gogh ever made,” said Christie’s art expert James Roundell. “This picture is in its way every bit as good” as the sunflowers painting sold at Christie’s on March 30.