Richard Parkes Bonington's Coastal Landscape with Fisherfolk has sold for £2.4m ($3.8m) in Christie's Old Masters evening sale.

The lot headlined the July 9 auction in London.

Bonington was an influential romantic painter

Bonington was an English romantic painter who spent most of his career living and working in France. The present lot depicts a beach in Normandy and dates to 1826.

It's a new record for the artist, whose previous best was set at £340,000 ($526,682) for another landscape in 1987.

Christie's explains: "This exceptional coastal landscape, painted when Bonington was at the height of his powers, constitutes the artist's grandest statement in oil to appear at auction in a generation, and is one of the last on this scale to remain in private hands.

"Displaying his virtuoso manipulation of the brush and the subtle observation of light and atmosphere that he had mastered as a watercolourist, the picture belongs to a group of coastal scenes that were celebrated during Bonington's lifetime and have captivated artists and collectors ever since."

Christ on the Cross by Domenikos Theotokopoulos (aka El Greco) realised £2.4m ($3.7m).  

The auction follows Sotheby's Old Master sale on July 8,  which saw a record £9.3m ($14.4m) paid for a work by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

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