Toyen’s 1926 painting ‘La Dame de pique’ auctioned for record 3 million euros

The 1926 painting ‘La Dame de pique’ by Czech artist Toyen sold at auction in Prague on Sunday for a record 78.65 million crowns (about 3 million euros), including fees.

Toyen, whose real name was Marie Čermínová, joined the Czech avant-garde Devětsil group in 1923 and moved to Paris two years later. She experimented with cubism, surrealism and a style she called artificialism – a kind of poetic answer to cubism.

The previous record auction price for a Czech paining was set by Oskar Kokoschka’s ‘Prague - View from the Monastery of the Knights of the Cross with a Red Star’, which sold for 78.5 million crowns last October.