Largest canvas painting sold for $83m

British contemporary artist Sacha Jafri with fragments of his painting, titled The Journey of Humanity, in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates last month.

The artwork - which holds the Guinness World Record for the largest art canvas - has been sold for US$62 million (S$83 million), the second-most expensive painting sold at auction by a living artist.

The proceeds from the auction will go to charity, with Unicef, Unesco, the Global Gift Foundation and Dubai Cares among the beneficiaries.

For the creation, the Dubai-based artist used 1,065 paint brushes and 6,300 litres of paint.

Painted across 1,800 sq m of canvas on the ballroom floor of the Atlantis hotel in Dubai over seven months amid the coronavirus pandemic, the canvas was split into 70 lots for sale. But the entire lot was bought by Mr Andre Abdoune, a French national living in Dubai who has a cryptocurrency business.