A painting inspired by the Tiananmen Square protests has become the most expensive work by a Chinese contemporary artist ever sold at auction, Sotheby’s auction house said.

Yue Minjun’s “Execution” sold to a telephone bidder late Friday for $5.9 million, well over its upper pre-sale estimate of $4.1 million. The price includes a buyer’s premium.

Sotheby’s described Yue’s 1995 painting as “arguably the artist’s most vehement, candid and politically loaded work.”

Recalling Francisco de Goya’s “The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid,” it depicts figures pointing at others in a mock-execution, in front of a red wall that suggests Beijing’s Forbidden City.

Posted: 10|13|07 at 1:55 pm. Filed under: UK News.