Ivan Aivazovsky's Classical Poets on a Moonlit Shore in Ancient Greece became the most expensive canvas sold at MacDougall's Fine Art Auctions in December.

According to MacDougall's website, the canvass was sold for for GBP 781 660 (Euro 906 726).

Armeian-born Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) is one of Russia’s and Europe’s leading 19th century painters. He established himself as a master already as a young man in the 1840s when he travelled to Europe for the first time, on the scholarship from the Imperial Academy of Arts. During that study tour, he became the second Russian painter ever to achieve international fame, resulting in the purchase of his painting by Pope Gregory XIV, and becoming a member of the Dutch Academy of Arts.