LONDON (AFP) — The record price for a Chinese contemporary artwork was smashed in London on Friday, Sotheby’s auction house said, for a painting based on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing.

Yue Minjun’s “Execution” fetched 2,932,500 pounds (5,964,700 dollars, 4,210,300 euros) after two telephone bidders battled it out. The pre-sale estimate was between 1.5 and two million pounds.

The previous highest price paid at auction for a Chinese avant-garde artist was set in June for Yue’s 1997 work “The Pope” for 2.15 million pounds.

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