Winston Churchill’s painting, Angelina Jolie, which is being sold at auction for millions, was bought for her by Brad Pitt as a gift, sources familiar with the sale told Page Six.
Pitt, 57, and Jolie, 45, are still involved in an endless divorce battle after announcing their separation in 2016. Reports have not said why Jolie is unloading the artwork.
Churchill’s 1943 painting was last purchased from antiques dealer MS Rau for $ 2.95 million in 2011 by an unidentified buyer and ended up in the Jolie family collection. Sources told Page Six that the buyer at the time was the avid art collector Pitt, who presented him with Jolie.
Sources also told us that Pitt’s role in Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 World War II drama “Inglourious Bastards” helped to inspire his interest in Churchill’s work. The Hollywood couple also visited Churchill’s war rooms together in the UK once on a private tour.
The painting, “Koutoubia Mosque Tower,” was created by Churchill for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and is estimated to reach $ 3.4 million through Christie’s.
Before Pitt bought it, the painting was passed from Roosevelt to his son Elliott, who sold it in 1950 to an art collector in Nebraska. It was later sold to a film producer, Norman G. Hickman, who was involved in a 1964 Churchill-themed film, “The Finest Hours”. The painting was left to Hickman’s relatives after he died, and ended up in a closet for 15 years until it was sold by Rau.
Pitt and Jolie’s representatives did not immediately comment.