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Sopranos Memorabilia Sold for Record Price
20-Jul-2008
Written by: Marshall Burns
A painting based on the Sopranos TV series sold for $175,000 on Friday.
The lead actors of The Sopranos have been immortalized in a painting based off of the 15th century pose of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino. Not only were they immortalized, but they got the honor of being part of the painting that was bought at the highest price that has ever been gotten for a piece of TV memorabilia: $175,000, reported Reuters.
Edie Falco and James Gandolfini played Carmela and mob boss Tony Soprano, respectively. The HBO series ran from 1999 to 2007. The two of them stare at each other in profile just as the Duke and Duchess did in Piero della Francesca’s original that was painted between 1465 and 1470, according to Reuters.
Federico Castelluccio, who portrayed the Italian hit man, Furio Giunta, who fell in love with Carmela, was the artist who painted the work. He told Reuters that he came up with the idea during a trip to Florence when he saw the piece at the Uffizi. He told Reuters, “They’re actually looking at each other, but kind of have the 1,000-yard stare, looking past each other. The idea came in the fourth season when they separate.”
He sold it to a Toronto oil executive, Robert Salna, for $175,000. Keya Morgan, the broker in the deal, told Reuters that this was the highest price ever paid for a piece of Sopranos memorabilia.
Gandolfini sold his costume wardrobe from the series in 25 lots in June. The 25 lots that it was split into fetched $187,750 for charity. This was four times more than the auction house, Christie’s, estimated it would make.
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