TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results$7.5 million Schumacher Ferrari sets record: Sotheby's
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
People look at former Ferrari German F1 driver Michael Schumacher's Monaco Grand Prix winning Ferrari F2001 car, which is on display with other models at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York on October 7, 2017, in celebrationS of Ferrari's 70th anniversary. (AFP/Jewel Samad)
M
ichael Schumacher's Grand Prix-Winning Ferrari sold for $7.5 million in New York on Thursday, setting an auction record for a modern-era Formula One car, Sotheby's said.
The seven-time world champion's 2001 Ferrari F2001 sparked furious bidding, roaring past its pre-sale estimate of $4-5 million at Sotheby's flagship post-war and contemporary November evening art sale.
It put the buzz into a night that otherwise fell short of the dizzying heights reached by Christie's on Wednesday selling a painting of Christ attributed to Leonardo da Vinci for a record $450.3 million.
Sotheby's said it was the first time that a rare automobile was included in an art auction and the decision appeared popular.
The sleek, low-slung, fire-engine red vehicle may not have been a work of art, but Gregoire Billault, senior Sotheby's vice president, called it "the very best racing car ever sold at an auction."
Read also: Schumacher Jr. eyes F1 career after Spa drive
The German racing legend has not been seen in public since suffering serious head injuries in a skiing accident in 2013. His record of seven titles and 91 career victories remains unchallenged.
When it came to the art, Sotheby's headline lot, a Francis Bacon triptych of the artist's lover sold for $38.6 million, well within its estimate of $35-45 million.
The auction record for a Bacon triptych is his "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" which sold for $142.4 million at Christie's in 2013.
Sotheby's other standout Thursday was an iconic 1972 Andy Warhol portrait of the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong, which sold for $32.4 million, the auction house said.
Exhibited in Berlin, Turin and Paris, the painting had not previously been on public display since 1974.
The other 10 "Mao" paintings of the same size are in prestigious collections, including the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
