Botticelli portrait sells for $92 million

A rare Botticelli portrait sold for $92.2 million at auction at Sotheby’s in New York on Thursday, a world record for any work by the Italian artist. The Renaissance artist’s Young Man Holding a Roundel is one of only around a dozen of his portraits known to survive today. Sandro Botticelli’s large-scale “Birth of Venus” and “Primavera” paintings are displayed in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. The $92.2 million price at the auction, conducted by bidders on the phone and online, included a buyer’s premium. The identity of the buyer was not immediately known. The 15thcentury work shows an unknown young man, likely a member of Florence’s elite, dressed in a simple tunic with a blue sky behind him and holding a roundel, or medallion. , The painting had carried a presale estimate of $80 million.

Many parts of northwest India were in the grip of cold wave conditions on Thursday as an approaching western disturbance prepared to make itself felt in the Himalayas and forebode a dip in temperatures over the plains, the IMD said. The minimum temperatures in Hisar (Haryana) dropped to 2.2 degrees C; the Safdarjung observatory, which provides representative weather data for New Delhi, recorded 3.8 degrees C; Kota (Rajasthan) 6.9 degrees C; and Bahraich (UP) 5 degrees C. Cold, dry northwesterly winds are blowing over the northern plains and adjoining parts of central India, IMD said. Under its influence, cold day to severe cold day conditions are likely in some pockets of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during the next 2-3 days. Cold wave to severe cold wave conditions are likely in parts of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and UP in the next two days.