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Photo: KENA BETANCUR / AFP
One of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century, a jet set star and the very first »super yacht«: these are the ingredients of an auction by the Phillips auction house in New York on Wednesday.
Specifically, it is about a landscape painting entitled »The Moat, Breccles«, which the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill painted in 1921.
Decades later it had graced the luxury yacht of billionaire Aristotle Onassis.
The auction house estimates the value of the work at 1.5 million to two million dollars (1.26 to 1.67 million euros).
Much more, namely $ 11.6 million, was achieved in March by a Churchill picture that the US actress Angelina Jolie had auctioned at Christie's.
Place of honor on the »Christina«
Churchill had kept the painting The Moat, Breccles, which he mentioned in his December 1921 essay Painting as a Pastime, for four decades.
In 1961, four years before his death, he gave it to his friend, the Greek shipowner Onassis, as Phillips Vice President Jean-Paul Engelen explained.
The billionaire was so proud of the gift that he gave it a place of honor on his yacht "Christina".
In the ship's Ari-Bar, the Churchill picture was given a place alongside works by the great masters Jan Vermeer, El Greco, Paul Gauguin and Camille Pissaro.
The nearly hundred-meter-long yacht that Onassis named after his daughter was once a frigate in the Canadian Navy.
She took part in the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II.
After the war, Onassis bought the ship for $ 34,000 and had it converted into a luxury yacht for $ 4 million.
His guests on the "Christina" included film stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the opera diva Maria Callas and the former US President John F. Kennedy.
His widow married Onassis in 1968 and died seven years later.
The yacht has been sold and its inventory has been put into storage.
Now his heirs have decided to part with the Churchill image.
To make it even more attractive for potential buyers, the Phillips auction house had the Ari-Bar rebuilt as a backdrop in its New York premises - including an imitation of the whale teeth in the legendary bar and numerous champagne bottles from Pol Roger, Onassis' favorite brand.
mik / AFP
