The final price of £3.466 million (€3.979 million) was higher than the three million pounds (€3.5 million) paid in 2023 for a different diptych from the same series, "Dancing Ostriches" (1995), also at an event hosted by British auction house Christie's.

Wednesday's bidding fell within the estimate of between three and five million pounds (€3.5 million and €5.8 million) set before the auction.


According to a statement from the auction house, at the event dedicated to works by 20th- and 21st-century artists, further records were set by works by Suzanne Valadon (€1.166 million), Annie Morris (€554,000), and Esben Weile Kjær (€29,000).

However, the star of the auction was Peter Doig's painting "Ski Jacket" (1994), which sold for €16.382 million. By the same artist, "Country Rock" (1998-1999) fetched €10.573 million.

The auction catalogue also included works by artists such as Lucian Freud, Picasso, René Magritte, Egon Schiele, Louise Bourgeois, Marc Chagall, Claude Monet, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, and Gerhard Richter.

The total amount raised, €122.750 million, was the highest since 2018 at auctions held to coincide with the Frieze art fair in London, which attracts collectors from around the world to the British capital.

"Dancing Ostriches from Walt Disney's 'Fantasia,' a set of three panels, is part of a series and thematic cycle of paintings inspired by Disney's "Fantasia," created for the Hayward Gallery exhibition "Spellbound: Art and Film" in 1996.

Over the past three decades, it has been exhibited frequently, including at the Tate Liverpool (1997) in the United Kingdom, the Musée Nationale Reina Sofia (2007-08) in Madrid, Spain, the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, France (2018-19), and the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover, Germany (2022-23).

In Portugal, it was exhibited at the Belém Cultural Center and the Paula Rego House of Stories.

The work was requested, however, to be loaned to the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, for an exhibition in 2026.

Born in Lisbon, Paula Rego travelled to the British capital at the age of 17 to study at the Slade School of Fine Art, where she would take up residence and become known for the uniqueness of her work, inspired by literature and marked, over the decades, by her advocacy for women's rights.

Paula Rego died on June 8, 2022, leaving behind a body of work represented in several of the most important public and private collections worldwide.