More than 9 and a half million euros : that has been the chilling sum for which the American actress Angelina Jolie has sold a painting of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill at an auction in London.
The work, titled in Spanish “The Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque”, was completed after the Casablanca conference in 1934.
Nicholas Orchard, director of modern British art at Christie’s auction house, explains that “a lot of people don’t even know that Churchill painted.”
“In fact, he was a beginner and he did it in his spare time. He painted around 500 oil paintings, but this work is a particularly rare specimen, because it was his only creation during World War II,” he points out.
The Moroccan businesswoman and designer Meryanne Loum-Martin has a copy of the painting and assures that the English politician felt a special devotion to the city of Casablanca.
“After the conference, Churchill went to the Atlas Mountains to see the sunset. sunshine. Everybody knows he couldn’t leave Morocco without seeing the Atlas. He told Franklin Roosevelt that he loved Marrakesh.”
The work has passed through different hands since the former British Prime Minister gave it to Roosevelt. Its last owner before being sold was actress Angelina Jolie.