Heaven sent Magritte painting bails out redundant airline staff

A painting by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte commissioned in 1965 by his country's national airline, Sabena, has proved of real benefit to the now bankrupt company's 12,000 former employees.

The picture, appropriately of a sky bird - L'Oiseau de Ciel - has sold at auction for €3.4m (£2.4m) to help the staff that the line was forced to pay off when it went into bankruptcy in November 2001.

The sum reported paid by an anonymous Belgian at the auction in a hangar at Brussels international airport late on Monday is about three times the reserve price put on the picture.

Many of the former staff were at the sale and said they were delighted with the result.

It is not known how much Sabena paid Magritte, who died two years later, but he was famously reported to have said that it was enough for him to "put butter on my spinach".

Christian Van Buggenhout, the curator for the auction, said: "It was a risk to hold the auction in Brussels but as we can see it was an excellent chance to take. We have surpassed all our estimates."

The sale was not a record for Magritte - another painting sold for €14.2m in New York last year - but L'Oiseau de Ciel is a relatively small canvas, measuring just 68.5cm x 45cm (27in x 17in). It is also one of his best known pieces.

Robert Périer, who commissioned it when he was president of Sabena World Airlines, was a friend of Magritte.

The image adorned Sabena's tailfins for years and was the company logo between 1966 and 1973, used in posters and brochures and other advertising material.

The painting went under the hammer at the climax of a two-day sale of company assets and memorabilia, including posters, model aeroplanes, photographs, cars, and even passenger seats, held to help finance the former employees' redundancy package.

The buyer, bidding through an agent against Japanese, American and French rivals, is said to be a relatively well-known French-speaking Belgian who made his fortune in pharmaceuticals.

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