Gray’s Glasgow Triumph of Death (Fall of Star Wormwood) was expected to fetch between £25,000 and £35,000 at the auction, hosted by fine art auctioneer Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on Wednesday.
The painting had been in private hands since 1957.
Though perhaps not as well-known an image as its fellow mural Cowcaddens Streetscape in the Fifties, Lyon & Turnbull noted that it the painting is “the ultimate visual realisation “of the literary, artistic and philosophical preoccupations which Gray was to crystallise in his landmark novel Lanark (1981)”.
Gray took inspiration for the painting from Breughel’s horrifying masterpiece Triumph of Death, representing mutant-like figures in place of Breughel’s skeletons, as well as borrowing devils from that other preeminent apocalyptic painter, Hieronymus Bosch. Behind this grisly chaos are the Necropolis and Cathedral (which indeed feature so pivotally at the close of Lanark), the Royal Infirmary, Clyde and St Enoch station.
The Contemporary Art sale also featured works by Gray highlighting key points throughout his career, from oils and drawings to prints and multiples.
