Mondriaan's Composition No. III sells for record $51 million

A painting by Piet Mondriaan sold at a record price for the artist in an auction at Christie's in New York on Thursday. The canvas, titled Composition No. III, With Red, Blue, Yellow and Black, sold for 50.6 million dollars, according to the auction house. The about 50 centimeter square canvas was painted in 1929. It depicts a white background with black vertical and horizontal lines and rectangles of primary colors. According to Bloomberg, the canvas was consigned by a private European collector who had owned it since 2009. The auction house estimated that the painting would go for between 15 and 25 million dollars. The last time the painting appeared at an auction was in 1997, when it fetched 3.8 million dollars. The previous record for a Mondriaan work was 27 million euros set at Christie's in 2009.