Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
LONDON (AP) — Artist Tracey Emin has sold her bed — and the disheveled sheets, empty vodka bottles, cigarette butts and discarded condoms were part of the lucrative deal.
Emin's artwork "My Bed" sold for 2.54 million pounds ($4.4 million) at a London auction Tuesday, more than double the pre-sale estimate and four times the previous record for the artist.
Emin, who has mined her tumultuous personal life for some of her best-known works, attended the auction and grinned when the hammer came down.
The work was sold by collector Charles Saatchi, an early supporter of Emin and other modern British artists.
Christie's auction house did not identify the buyer. But its head of contemporary art, Francis Outred, hinted it was an institution, saying the bed would end up "somewhere important."
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
