NEW ORLEANS – Rebecca Rau was at work.
Showing somebody something.
The location is her family’s fine art gallery in French Quarter.
It’s M. S. Rau, an art gallery.
It’s a fine art, antiques and jewels gallery.
WGNO’s Bill Wood says the gallery gets some really good stuff.
And the stuff sometimes goes to some really famous people.
A few years ago, a guy you’d recognize wanted to buy a painting.
The guy is Brad Pitt.
The painting was painted by Winston Churchill.
THE Winston Churchill.
It’s called Tower of Koutoubia Mosque.
Churchill gave it to Franklin Roosevelt in 1943 as a birthday gift.
The painting made its way, over the years to M. S. Rau Gallery in New Orleans.
That’s where Brad Pitt bought it as a gift for Angelina Jolie.
They used to live in New Orleans.
They used to be married.
When they split from New Orleans and each other, she got the painting.
She recently sold it at auction.
The price listed when Brad Pitt bought it, $3 million.
The price reported when Angelina Jolie sold it, $11.5 million.
Fine art can sometimes make a mighty fine relationship.