HONG KONG (AP) – A Chinese artist’s 1939 painting sold for $8.19 million at a Hong Kong auction Saturday, setting a new record price for Chinese oil paintings, an auction house said.

“Put Down Your Whip” by Xu Beihong was sold at more than double its earlier estimated price to a collector who bid by telephone, said Eliza Chan, a spokesman for the U.K.-based auction house Sotheby’s.

She declined to give further information about the buyer.

The previous record price for a Chinese oil painting was set by another piece by Xu, a leading advocate of realist Chinese painting.

In November, an unknown collector bought that work, “Slave and Lion,” for $6.88 million in Hong Kong.

“Put Down Your Whip,” painted in 1939 during Xu’s stay in Singapore, portrays an actress in a patriotic street drama. It was one among others Xu painted to promote patriotism and raise war funds for China, Sotheby’s said in a statement.

“The motive, date, theme and historical backdrop and the epic – all of these mark the painting as Xu Beihong’s most impressive work,” the statement said.

It said the painting’s whereabouts had been unclear for a few decades, and that Saturday was the first time it had been displayed in public since 1954.

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