The painting by Antonín Procházka was auctioned for 1.8 million crowns

PRAGUE - The painting by Antonín Procházka titled Self-Portrait (Head Study) was sold at today's auction at the Art Praha Gallery for 1.8 million crowns. It only exceeded the starting price by 200,000 crowns. "In total, art worth nine million crowns was sold today, but we faced significant competition from today's sunny weather," said auction house owner Vladimír Neubert after the auction ended. He mentioned that a Saturday auction by Dorothea might have also "distracted" potential buyers.
None of the other works reached the million crown mark today. Apart from Procházka, works with higher starting prices did not succeed - surprising the auctioneer, Karel Černý's painting Still Life with a Bottle and Pears, with a starting price of 590,000 crowns, did not sell, nor did Václav Špála's painting Landscape with a Castle, which had a starting price of 500,000 crowns. However, collectors took home two other works by Špála - one of his bouquets sold for 300,000 crowns, and Lilies of the Valley for 250,000 crowns.
A canvas oil painting by Václav Brožík titled Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, King of the Romans, Hungary, and Bohemia was sold for the starting price of 250,000 crowns. The same amount was paid by the new owner of a painting by the recently deceased Josef Jíra. The large oil titled Železný Brod with a White Horse started at 120,000 crowns.
On Saturday, the Prague Dorotheum auctioned off 323 of the 561 items offered. Collectors purchased art for a total of 17.9 million crowns excluding auction fees. The average price increase of sold works was around 82 percent.
The highest price at the auction was achieved by The Abandoned by Croatian painter Vlaho Bukovac, dated 1916. The work was started at 380,000 crowns and the auction ended at 1.4 million crowns. In second place was Alfred Justitz's Bathing, where its price rose from 200,000 crowns to one million. A significant surprise, according to the organizers, was Petar Dobrovič, whose City with Palms went from a starting price of 40,000 crowns to 450,000 crowns.
Surprisingly, all of Rudolf Kremlička's offered paintings, as well as Slavíček's Forest, returned unsold from the auction. Brožík's Portrait of a Young Lady was auctioned for 550,000 crowns, as was Václav Špála's painting In the Port of Marseille.