Late former South African president Nelson Mandela prison drawing of the door to his prison cell on Robben Island has been sold for $112,575 in New York.
The drawing captures the door of the prison cell were he was held for 18 years. It is a wax pastel crayon drawing sketched in purple, showing a few bars of the cell door and a key in the lock. It was inspired by the struggle against apartheid and was kept by Mandela himself until his death in
2013.
After his death, Mandela’s daughter Pumla Makaziwe Mandela previously had the work in her possession.
The Cell Door, Robben Island, completed in 2002 by the Nobel peace laureate — exceeded the top end of the estimated range provided by Bonhams, which put its value at $60,000 to $90,000, EWN reports.
Nelson Mandela was jailed for 27 years in total. Mandela was jailed from 1962 to 1990. He was held at Robben Island off Cape Town from 1964 to 1982. Mandela served as South African president from 1994 to 1999.
Mandela did a total of 20 to 25 drawings, according to Giles Peppiatt, the auction house’s director of modern African art. Some were reproduced as lithographs to raise money for the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Mandela’s drawing was one of six works that surpassed $100,000 at the sale of African art on Thursday.
Another South African artist, Irma Stern (1894-1966), earned the highest price of the auction, $312,575, for “Malay Girl,” a portrait from 1946.
