Eakins' painting to sell for record sum

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- The sale of Thomas Eakins' painting, "The Gross Clinic," is set to break the price record for a U.S. artistic work made before World War II.

With the National Gallery of Art set to pay $68 million for the painting, the work will not only break the sales record but will be relocated from Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University to the Washington gallery, said New York Newsday.

The change of address for the painting could be put on hold if a source comes up with a matching bid to keep the work in Philadelphia, where it is seen as a veritable cultural treasure, the report said.

If the painting's sale, facilitated by Christie's America, goes unhindered, the work will spend its time between the National Gallery and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.

The Arkansas museum was founded by Alice Walton, daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and is set to open in 2009.

No matter who ultimately purchases the painting, its $68 million price tag far surpasses the mere $200 it was originally sold for back in 1878, the newspaper said.