Angelina Jolie's painting sold for 8.3 million pounds, or about $11.5 million

Angelina Jolie's painting sold for 8.3 million pounds, or about $11.5 million. The painting was first owned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as a birthday gift, after a pivotal World War II meeting in Casablanca to discuss long-term strategy.

The work, “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque” (1943) is a record for an artwork by Churchill. The painting reflect a sunlit Marrakesh with the Atlas Mountains in the background to Roosevelt in 1943.

Churchill told the president, according to the Christie’s catalog, “You cannot come all this way to North Africa without seeing Marrakesh. I must be with you when you see the sun set on the Atlas Mountains.” Believed to be Churchill’s only landscape painted during the war years, the work records the view the two statesmen enjoyed at the Villa Taylor, on the outskirts of the city.

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