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On the anniversary of the artist's birth, Van Gogh's Sunflowers was 21 for just under ￡25 million at the fine art auctioneers (拍卖商), Christie's, in London. The 22 was triple the previous record of ￡8 million paid in 1985 for Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi. At least ten bidders 23 for the painting, half 24 telephone, anonymously battling it out in leaps of ￡500,000. Van Gogh wrote in a letter of 1889 that one of these Scots or Americans 25 to pay 500 francs—about ￡25 at that time—for 26 a painting. Christie's chairman 27 reporters after the sale, 'it's a rare picture.' A spokesman for the firm added, 'It's fantastic.' Not 28 who was at the auction agreed. One commented, 'More money 29 sense.' Many people do 30 uneasy that a picture could be auctioned for such an unbelievable sum. They find distasteful the contrast 31 this sort of money and the impoverished life of the painter 32 . Van Gogh, once a lay preacher among the miners of Belgium, was more 33 in producing work that dignified labor than he was in selling for a profit. Depressive, poor, unrecognized and 34 suicidal, he remains a romantic figure in the public 35 .