Australia gallery buys prized Cezanne for $13 million

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - A Sydney art gallery has paid A$16.2 million ($13 million) for a work by French Impressionist artist Paul Cezanne, making it the most expensive painting purchased by an Australian public gallery.

The painting, "Bords de la Marine", was painted by Cezanne in 1888 and was held for more than 100 years in the private collection of a Swiss family, Art Gallery of New South Wales director Edmund Capon said on Friday.

He said the painting, which depicts buildings in the French countryside, had been at the top of his acquisition wish list for 25 years.

"It's taken a long time, but the wait has been worth it," Capon said after unveiling the painting in Sydney.

Australian galleries have only two other Cezanne paintings, with a smaller painting on display at the National Gallery in Canberra, and an earlier landscape at the state gallery in the southern city of Melbourne.

(Reporting by James Grubel, editing by Miral Fahmy)