LONDON (AP) Sotheby's says a drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicting the empress of the underworld has fetched nearly 3.3 million pounds ($5.3 million) at auction, setting a record for the artist.
The auction house says "Proserpine," a drawing in colored chalk, was considered by Rossetti to be "the most beautiful of all his inventions."
It said the drawing from the late 1800s was bought by a private collector in London on Tuesday after a fierce round involving five international bidders.
The sale price handily beat a presale estimate of between 1.2 and 1.8 million pounds.
Grant Ford, head of Sotheby's British and Irish art department, called "Proserpine" one of the most important pre-Raphaelite pictures to hit the auction market in recent years.
