A 16th CENTURY painting has been sold by the Catholic church for £288,500 - 10 times the estimate. The Diocese of Argyll and the Isles sold the Anointing of the Crucified Christ to help pay for the renovation of St Donnan's Church on Eigg.
Auctioneers Sotheby's expected it would fetch between £20,000 and £30,000 but when it finally went under the hammer, it went for £288,500.
Father Andrew Barrett, of Arisaig Parish, which takes in the tiny flock of 23 on Eigg, said: "In our game we are not surprised by our prayers being answered.
"It is a very pleasant piece of news.
"Now we can support any renovation that needs done.
There is quite a lot, the chapel house is in a very poor state."
A row erupted over the ownership of the painting when the diocese first moved to sell it in 2002.
A member of the congregation raised a petition claiming the work was owned by the parish and officials had no right to sell the painting.
That prompted Sotheby's to withdraw the painting and led to it sitting in storage until now.
The painting was allegedly stolen in the 1880s during the Chile-Peruvian war by adventurer and gunrunner, Robert Lawrence Thomas MacEwen, who became the owner of Eigg in the late 1890s.
In an act of penitence in 1910, the Presbyterian willed it to Father James MacNeil, parish priest of St Donnan's.
He stipulated that it was to be sold if the church fell on hard times.
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