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Mandela prison drawing sold for $112,575

By Mutala Yakubu
Mandela prison drawing sold for $112,575
Mandela prison drawing sold for $112,575
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A drawing by South Africa's first black President Nelson Mandela of the door of his prison cell on Robben Island has sold for $112,575 (£86,345) at an auction in New York - higher than its estimated value of between $60,000 and $90,000.



"The Cell Door, Robben Island" was completed by the late Mr Mandela in 2002 - 12 years after his release from prison for fighting the racist system of apartheid.

Sketched in purple, it shows the bars of a prison cell door and a key in the lock.

The wax pastel crayon drawing shows a few bars of the cell door and a key in the lock, sketched in purple.

The work is one of the few that Mandela -who was jailed for 27 years in total and inspired the struggle against apartheid -- kept until his death in 2013.

Mandela's daughter Pumla Makaziwe Mandela previously had the work in her possession.



South Africa's first black president 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 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'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.

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