Titian painting auctions for record $16.8 mln

A sumptuous painting of the Madonna and child by Renaissance master Titian sold for a record $16,882,500 Thursday in New York.

The Sotheby's auction easily broke a 20-year-old record of $13.6 million for a Titian.

The painting, "A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria," depicts the Virgin Mary and the two saints posed around a chubby infant Jesus as he stretches out his left hand.

"'A Sacra Conversazione' is one of only a handful of multi-figured compositions by Titian that remain in private hands, and is the most important to appear at auction in decades," Sotheby's said.

The work, painted in about 1560, had not been seen on the market in some 30 years.