DALLAS, TX.- Regarded by many as the most significant and ambitious work of the Victorian artist's career, Henrietta Rae's Psyche before the throne of Venus sold for $324,500, the second-highest price ever for the artist at auction, to lead Heritage Auction's $1.3+ million Fine European Art auction.

Psyche features a total of 14 full-length figures, and is a testament to Rae's celebrity as the finest woman painter of the female nude in pre-modern Britain. The work subsequently was owned by "celebrity collectors" William Randolph Hearst and Amon G. Carter.

"There is no doubt that Henrietta Rae set out to create a major artistic statement when she painted Psyche before the throne of Venus," notes Dr. Marianne Berardi, Senior European Painting Expert at Heritage. "This mythological composition not only took her over two years to complete, but required that she build a new painting studio in order to accommodate its ambitious dimensions. It's wonderful that Rae, who had to contend with so much chauvinism in the male-dominated art world of her time, chose to paint this myth that was populated entirely by women."

French artists filled out the remaining top spots in the auction, with French Post-Impressionist Henri Baptiste Lebasque's Sur les bords de la Marne, 1901 large tour de force selling for $125,000 and Fauvist Maurice de Vlaminck's Rue de village, circa 1920-22 and Ferme gaveling for $65,625 and $57,500, respectively.

French academic painter Guillaume-Charles Brun's work The young rag seller, 1870 sold for $52,500, while noted French cityscape painter Maurice Utrillo's Rue Lepic à Montmartre sold for $48,750.

Belgian artist Anto Carte's The Annunciation, 1923 sold for $47,500. A large painting of the The Virgin Mary adoring the Christ Child, circa 1645 by rare Baroque painter Matteo Loves brought $32,500.

Additional highlights include, but are not limited to:

• Neige, circa 1890 by Jean-Baptiste-Armand Guillaumin: Realized $45,000

• Paysage d'automne aux environs de Saint-Tropez, 1922 by Henri Charles Manguin: Realized $42,500

• Divinitié, 1967 by Vu Cao Dam: Realized $37,500