Much-loved Russian-born Cape Town painter Vladimir Tretchikoff’s Balinese Girl, an absorbing portrait of a younger Indonesian girl in conventional costume, considered painted circa 1954-56, offered to a phone purchaser at Strauss & Co’s sale of modern and contemporary art for R5 718 750, a brand new South African report.

Earlier on Tuesday, all 48 works in a sale dedicated to Calitzdorp artist-potter Hylton Nel offered, reaching what within the auction-world parlance is known as a white-glove sale.

Nel’s works incessantly offered at costs properly in extra of the pre-sale estimates. A pair of cats on yellow bases earned the highest worth, promoting for R234 500.

The Tretchikoff public sale report confirmed on-going demand for the artist, who died at age 92 in 2006.

Best identified for his vivid portraiture and canny advertising and marketing methods that prefigured Pop artwork, Tretchikoff’s Balinese Girl derives from the artist’s traditional interval, when he originated such iconic works as Chinese Girl (1952) and Lady from Orient (1955) in his Cape Town studio.

Vladimir Tretchikoff settled in Cape Town in 1946.