Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat are usually the focus at all the superstar-focused auctions. But, at the Christie’s recent Post War and Contemporary Art auction, Alice Neel, a 20th-century American painter from Spanish Harlem stole all the charm. Alice Neel’s portrait, “Roberta Johnson Roensch’ fetched nearly half a million dollars.

The portrait of the wide-eyed young bride was up for auction for the first time after it was created in the ’40s. It was sold to an US collector after strong bidding for $445,000. Interestingly, the portrait was expected to sell for between $50,000 and $70,000. It also broke the earlier record for Alice Neel when her portrait “Peter B. Kaplan” was sold for $216,000 at Sotheby’s in 2006.

via Forbes