A painting by the late Québécois artist Jean-Paul Riopelle has netted $1,667,500, the largest amount ever paid at auction for a work by Riopelle.

Il etait une fois une ville had a presale bid estimate of $750,000 to $950,000. 

Jean-Paul Riopelle's Il etait une fois une ville fetched a record auction price at $1,667,500 on Friday.
(Heffel Fine Art Auction House)

The Heffel Fine Art Auction House would not divulge the identity of the international buyer who purchased the piece Friday night at its Canadian art auction in Toronto.

"There were serious bidders from across Canada, as well as phone bidders from the United States, the U.K. and Asia, all attempting to land works by some of Canada's best artists," said company president David Heffel.

More than 400 people were in attendance, as well as 100 telephone bidders.

The last auction record for a Riopelle, who died in 2002, was set three years ago at $837,500. The artist's works account for 10 of the 25 top Canadian paintings sold at auction.

Two other Riopelle works, Le progress envahi par lat forêt and La Cime de L'Herve, netted a total sale of $522,500.

Interest in Riopelle has peaked of late. An exhibit of his works was on display over the summer at the venerable Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the first time.

Riopelle burst onto the art scene during the 1940s and belonged to the Automatistes, a group of progressive artists and writers in Quebec whose members included Paul-Emile Borduas, Marcelle Ferron and Fernand Leduc.  

In 1948, Riopelle and 15 other artists signed a manifesto called Refus Global (Global Refusal), which called on the province to open up to new ideas from around the world.

It was a banner night for Canadian art. A Tom Thomson painting, Northern Lights, went for $776,250. A Sotheby’s auction earlier this week sold another Thomson for nearly $1 million.

A two-sided abstract by Group of Seven founder Lawren Harris was taken for $300,000. The Group of Seven derived inspiration from Thomson's paintings of the Northern Ontario wilderness.

Three paintings by Helen McNicolls all sold for more than $100,000 each.

Sir John A. Macdonald letter also on the block

Perhaps the most unique item of the evening was a letter written in 1867 by Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, to English legal theorist Sir Henry Sumner Maine.

The eight-page letter, written just after Queen Victoria signed the British North America Act, fetched $34,500.

Macdonald talks about the difficulties involved in merging French civil law with English law and asks Maine to recommend a place in India where his cousin might set up a law practice.

The letter reveals the prime minister to have a mischievous streak, suggesting that Canada might someday invade San Francisco.

"War will come someday between England and the United States and India can do us yeoman's service by sending an army of Sikhs … across the Pacific to San Francisco and holding that beautiful and immortal city with the surrounding California — as security for Montreal and Canada."