HELSINKI: A rare 3,400-year-old Egyptian burial shroud fetched 374,000 euros ($426,000) at auction in Paris Thursday, on the latest leg of a journey that has seen it passed from a billionaire banking heir to his wife and, later, his mistress.
The sale at Piasa auction house was unusual as most similar shrouds — roughly 20 are known to exist in the world — are in the collections of museums like the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The winning bid was made by telephone and the identity of the buyer was not disclosed. The small vividly painted square of fabric belonged to a scion of the Goldman Sachs banking dynasty and later his lover, French author and publisher Jeanne Loviton.
