US$81.3m Van Gogh kicks off NY art auction season

New York

CHRISTIE'S kicked off the autumn auction season in New York on Monday with a Vincent Van Gogh leading the way at US$81.3 million with robust sales of impressionist and modern art.

Laboureur dans un champ, painted by the tortured Dutch genius from the window of a French asylum where he had committed himself, was sold to a buyer on the telephone after a frenzied four-minute bidding war having been valued at US$50 million.