Billionaire Jeweller Snaps Up Original Green Lady Painting (The Chinese Girl)

The original painting of The Chinese Girl, thought to be the most reproduced painting in the world, has been purchased by a billionaire jeweller, for almost £1 million. Mr Laurence Graff bought the painting by Siberian born artist Vladimir Tretchikoff as part of a sale of South African art, at a Bonhams auction house, The Telegraph report.

The painting will go on display at the Delaire Graff Estate, near Stellenbosch in South Africa, where the picture will go on display with the rest of his art collection. The painting has been reproduced and sold millions of times since its original inception in the 1950s and it’s also known as The Green Lady, due to the unusual blue-green skin tone of the painting’s subject. A spokesman for the auction house said “It's very exciting. Suddenly the market has decided they like what they can see with Tretchikoff.” After the painting sold for £982, 050, the spokesman commented “It's almost triple the £380,000 we sold his painting Lenka for last year. It shows he's beginning to close in on the other major figures on the South African art landscape, Irma Stern - whose picture Arab Priest we previously sold for £3 million - and Pierneef.”

Graff is a self-made billionaire. He left school at the age of 14 to become a jeweller’s apprentice and now owns over 20 stores worldwide, in cities such as Hong Kong and Dubai. The Queen and Donald Trump are amongst his high-profile clients.