Portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for record-breaking amount

The famous picture sold for over £158m at auction in America!

A portrait of actress Marilyn Monroe has become the most expensive piece of artwork from the 20th Century EVER sold!

The picture, created by artist Andy Warhol in 1964, was auctioned in New York for $195m - or £158,170,000!

The whopping sum of money means the sale also makes it the highest ever amount paid for an American work of art.

The screen-print known as 'Shot Sage Blue Marilyn' shows the film star with bright yellow hair, a pink face and light blue eyeshadow.

Marilyn Monroe was one of Hollywood's best known actresses in the 1950s and 1960s.

The portrait is one of five similar paintings of Marilyn Monroe created by Warhol.

The artist is believed to have used a technique to create the images which he later chose to never use again.

"It was way too complicated, way too involved," said Alex Rotter, Christie's chairman of 20th and 21st Century art.

Andy Warhol created lots of pictures of actress Marilyn Monroe

Ahead of the sale, Christie's - the auction house - wrote that the painting is "one of the rarest and most transcendent images in existence", with a selling price "in the region" of $200m.

It has been reported that the winning bidder was a US art dealer called Larry Gagosian, who owns a chain of art galleries.

According to Christie's, all the money from the sale will go to the Switzerland-based Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation Zurich, which works to establish healthcare and education programmes for children around the world.

The previous record for a 20th Century work of art, was set in 2015 when a painting by the famous artist Pablo Picasso sold for just over £145m.