Vincent Van Gogh painting that was ‘unseen’ for over 100 years sold for £11.2m at auction

Lesser-known work is titled A Street Scene in Montmartre

Scene de rue a Montmartre by Vincent Van Gogh (REUTERS)

A painting by Vincent Van Gogh that was kept behind closed doors for more than a century has been sold at auction for £11.2m (€13.09m).

The piece, which is called A Street Scene in Montmartre, had been estimated to sell for up to £6.9m.

Van Gogh’s artwork had been owned by a French family for the majority of its existence, with art specialists and historians only having previously catalogued the work as a black-and-white photograph.

It was originally painted by the iconic Dutch artist in 1887.

Auction house Sotheby’s said that the price was a record amount for a work by the artist in France, where the sale took place.

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Van Gogh painted the piece during a stay with his brother Theo in Paris from 1886 to 1887.

It depicts a windmill in Montmartre, an area on the outskirts of the northen part of the city, which was just a village at the time.

The auction was live-streamed on Thursday (25 March) from the French capital.

Van Gogh’s work initially sold for an even higher amount, but problems with online bidding meant that the piece had to be offered up again at the end of the event.