A pair of oil paintings composed in 1895 by impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir sold Saturday for 310 million yen in a Tokyo auction, the second-highest price ever at an art auction in Japan, Shinwa Art Auction Co. said.
Wood One Museum of Art in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, won the bidding for "Etude de femme," which shows a peasant woman holding a flower, and "La femme au panier de fleurs," which depicts a rich woman with a basket of flowers. The two paintings once belonged to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In 2000, Wood One Museum of Art placed the highest bid ever — 360 million yen — in an auction in Japan for a portrait by Ryusei Kishida.