A portrait of a female nude by Francis Bacon sold for 21.3 million pounds ($33.7 million) at Christie's on Tuesday, helping bring the total for the post-war and contemporary evening sale in London to 80.6 million pounds ($127.5 million).
"Portrait of Henrietta Moraes", painted in 1963, came toward the lower end of estimates of 18-25 million pounds ($28.5 million-$39.5 million) if the buyer's premium is taken into account. But it was still the highest price paid for a painting in its category at auctioneers Christie's London in four years.
23 million at risk in African drought
The International Federation of the Red Cross says the hunger crisis in the arid, western shoulder of Africa could spread to 23 million people without more immediate aid. The federation - an umbrella group for national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies around the world - estimates 10-14 million people now do not have enough food in the Sahel region due to failed rains, pest attacks and local flooding. IFRC's regional representative for Sahel, Momodou Lamin Fye, told reporters on Tuesday in Geneva that Chad and Mauritania each harvested only half of what was needed.
Not wanting to point out the obvious, but there is a strange and cruel irony in the way the shape of the African woman in the photograph above mirrors the figure in the Bacon painting. We live in a beautiful and sad world!
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