That the painting by Winston Churchill, which Angelina Jolie sold at an auction for millions, was bought for her by Brad Pitt as a gift, sources familiar with the auction say.
Pitt, 57, and Jolie, 45, are still embroiled in an endless divorce battle after announcing their split in 2016. Reports did not say why Jolie was loading the artwork.
The 1943 Churchill painting was last purchased in 2011 by an unnamed buyer from New Orleans Antique Merchant MS Rau and ended up in the Jolie Family Collection. Sources tell Page Six that the buyer at the time was an avid art collector Pitt who donated it to Jolie.
Sources further told us that Pitt’s role in Quentin Tarantino’s World War II drama in 2009, “Inglourious Basterds,” helped stimulate his interest in the Churchill work. The Hollywood couple apparently also once visited the Churchill War Rooms in the UK on a private tour.
The painting, “Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque,” was created by Churchill for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and is estimated to fetch up to $ 3.4 million via Christie’s.
Before Pitt bought it, Roosevelt’s painting was passed on to his son Elliott, who sold it to an art collector in Nebraska in 1950. It was later sold to a filmmaker, Norman G. Hickman, who was involved in a film by The Churchill, ‘The Finest Hours’ in 1964. The painting was subsequently left to Hickman’s family members after he died, and 15 years long liquidated in a closet until sold by Rau.
Repitters for Pitt and Jolie did not immediately comment.