SHORT TAKES : Bought by Couple for $160, Statue Sells for $10.7 Million
<i> From Times staff and wire service reports</i>
LONDON —
A Dutch bronze statue that stood forgotten in an English country garden for nearly 40 years was sold at auction today for a record $10.7 million.
The Dancing Faun by 17th-Century sculptor Adrien de Vrix was bought for less than $160 in the 1950s by an English couple who put it in a sale of garden statues before it was identified by experts as a masterpiece.
It had been expected to fetch up to $2.4 million by auctioneers at Sotheby’s.
The 30-inch high statue of a young man has been dated at between 1610 and 1615, when the sculptor was working in Prague.
It was inspired by an ancient marble, now in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, which was excavated in the 16th Century and thought to have been restored by Michelangelo.