A rare portrait of Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi was sold at auction in London for more than €176,600, twice its estimated value, auction house Bonhams announced.
Painted in 1931 by British-American artist Clare Leighton, this painting is considered to be the only one for which the hero of Indian independence posed.
Initially estimated at between £50,000 and £70,000 (between €58,000 and €82,000), it sold for £152,800 (€176,626), Bonhams announced on Tuesday.
Clare Leighton met Gandhi in 1931, when he was in London for negotiations with the British government about India. She was part of London's left-wing artistic circles and was introduced to Gandhi by her partner, journalist Henry Noel Brailsford.
Gandhi was shot dead in 1948 by Nathuram Godse, an extremist who accused him of betraying Hindus by agreeing to the partitioning of India and the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Gandhi's assassin is now revered by many Hindu nationalists who are campaigning to have his actions reclassified.
According to the Leighton family, the painting of Gandhi itself was attacked with a knife by a "Hindu extremist" in the early 1970s.
