Van Gogh's glowing blue 1890 portrait of Adeline Ravoux was sold May 11, 1988 at Christie's for $13.8 million -- more than six times the price paid for it in 1980. Neither the buyer nor the seller were identified. Van Gogh painted Adeline, the 13-year-old daughter of the innkeeper Arthur Gustave Ravoux, at a time when he was working on new approaches to portrait painting. He completed three studies of this young girl, of which this one was the largest and most flattering, and the version he gave his brother Theo. ''I should like to paint portraits which would appear after a century to the people living then as apparitions,'' Vincent wrote Theo. (New York Times). Adeline Ravoux was the daughter of Arthur-Gustave Ravoux, whose inn is where Van Gogh lodged in Auvers-sur-Oise. She later wrote a memoir of Van Gogh's stay with them. She witnessed Van Gogh's return to the inn after the fatal incident where he shot himself: "Vincent walked bent, holding his stomach, again exaggerating his habit of holding one shoulder higher than the other. Mother asked him: " M. Vincent, we were anxious, we are happy to see you to return; have you had a problem?" He replied in a suffering voice: "No, but I have…" he did not finish, crossed the hall, took the staircase and climbed to his bedroom. I was witness to this scene. Vincent made on us such a strange impression that Father got up and went to the staircase to see if he could hear anything." (http://www.tfsimon.com/auvers-sur-oise.html)