Vincent van Gogh painting sells for $54M

NEW YORK -- A Vincent van Gogh painting of a landscape scene sold for $54 million on Thursday.

The auction at Sotheby's also featured work from Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Kazimir Malevich and Gustave Caillebotte. Many of the paintings, including "a spectacular van Gogh landscape (that) instantly transports viewers to the south of France," came from the collection of Louis Franck, a Belgian banker, and his wife, Evelyn, Sotheby's said on its website.

"The great jewel in the collection is van Gogh's 'Paysage sous un ciel mouvementé' ('Landscape Under a Stormy Sky') -- perhaps the finest landscape by van Gogh that we have seen on the market in three decades ," said Simon Shaw, co-head of worldwide impressionist and modern art for Sotheby's. "This is where he finds and loses himself. A month after this picture was painted, he admitted himself into to the asylum."

Shaw added that the painting captures the emotional extremities of van Gogh's life by showing a spring meadow with children picking flowers in the lower half and gathering storm clouds in the top half of the scene. Earlier, Sotheby's estimated 'Landscape Under a Stormy Sky' could sell for between $50 and $70 million at the 7 p.m. auction.

The fall art auction season got underway Wednesday evening with Sotheby's selling 77 works from the A. Alfred Taubman collection, according to the Associated Press. At a day sale Thursday, Sotheby's was featuring an additional 122 additional works from the Taubman collection, the news agency reported.