Churchill estate sale

He may be best remembered as the UK's stirring wartime patriot, but Winston Churchill had a somewhat more passive hobby : He liked to paint. And it's a hobby which paid off handsomely on Wednesday, with the record sum for his painting, "The Goldfish Pool at Chartwell," tripling its pre-sale estimate and almost doubling the previous record for his work.

The painting belonged to his daughter Mary Soames who died in May, and was auctioned by Sotheby's amongst a collection that included 15 paintings - widely considered the most significant collection of works to be put on the market - as well as many personal photographs.

A ministerial briefcase from Churchill's time in Cabinet sold for nearly $250,000 and a signed photo to Mary Soames from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt earned more than $50,000, 10 times its pre-sale estimate.

Soames, the youngest and last surviving of Churchill's five children with his wife Clementine, had a close relationship to her father and accompanied him on his many official trips. The auction drew over 900 individual bidders and raised well over $24 million.

jt/kbm (AP, AFP)