The Decoder: The Green Lady

How a much-criticised painting sold for Dh5.49m.

'Chinese Girl' by Vladimir Tretchikoff. EPA

Officially titled Chinese Girl, the painting became widely known as The Green Lady. It was painted in 1950 by Vladimir Tretchikoff, a Russian who had migrated to South Africa after the Second World War. He died in Cape Town in 2006, at the age of 92.

The model was Monika Sing-Lee, who was spotted by Tretchikoff while working in her uncle's launderette in Cape Town. The original painting was bought from the artist in 1954 by Mignon Buhler, the teenage daughter of an American businessman. She paid $2,000 (Dh7,345) and the work has remained in the family until the sale by Buhler's granddaughter.

The painting helped Tretchikoff become the most commercially successful artist in the world after Picasso, thanks to the vast number of print sales. It's never been loved by the critics, however. In 1974, it was said by one to be "the most unpleasant work to be published in the 20th century".

Now seen to be synonymous with cheap kitsch, prints of the painting don't actually come that cheap. Since the sale, the price of a copy has also gone up, and they're now being sold for Dh700 on eBay.

The price paid for the painting (almost £1 million) lwas a record sum for the artist and exceeded all expectations, but for its new owner, Laurence Graff, the amount was small change. In 2010, he paid £29 million (Dh161 million) for a rare pink diamond he named The Graff Pink.