Andy Warhol’s Queen Elizabeth II Portrait Bought for a File $900,000

• Andy Warhol’s 1985 portrait of Queen Elizabeth II offered for nearly $900,000, per Canadian auction house Heffel.
• The portrait of the Queen shattered world information of an editioned Warhol print ever auctioned.
• Embellished with diamond mud, the print is a part of Warhol’s 1985 Reigning Queen sequence.

One among Andy Warhol’s famend portraits of the late Queen Elizabeth II has offered for nearly $900,000 — a file sum for an editioned print ever auctioned, Canada’s Heffel Fine Art Auction House announced Thursday.

The print — dubbed the “crown jewel” of the sale by Heffel — was offered on the gallery’s Submit Warfare and Modern Artwork public sale for greater than twice the estimated sale price of roughly $405,000.

Created in 1985, the silkscreen print of the late monarch relies on {a photograph} shot by Peter Grugeon at Windsor Citadel in 1975, which was subsequently printed in 1977, on the event of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

The print is certainly one of 4 in Warhol’s 1985 Reigning Queen sequence, per The Art Newspaper. 

This explicit print includes a portrait of the Queen donning the diamond and pearl Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara, juxtaposed towards a putting regal blue background. The print can be sprinkled with diamond mud, producing a glimmer impact beneath the sunshine.

It’s also certainly one of two prints editioned “Hors d’Commerce,” that means that the print is just not on the market. Such prints are usually given by the artist as presents.

Andy Warhol, a number one exponent within the discipline of pop artwork, is famend for creating works that marry the themes of mainstream pop culture and societal defiance.

His costliest work-to-date is his portrait of Marilyn Manroe named “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn”, which offered for a file $195 million at an auction on May 9, 2022.