RECORD PRICE FOR VICTORIAN WORK

LONDON — One of the best-known paintings of the Victorian era, a forlorn girl sitting on the globe of the world playing a lyre, sold Wednesday for the highest price ever paid for any Victorian painting, Sotheby’s auction house said.

The oil painting by George Frederic Watts was bought by a London dealer for $1.22 million, more than quadruple Sotheby’s top pre-sale estimate. The painting, first exhibited 100 years ago, is named “Hope.”

The dealer, Peter Nahum, refused to reveal for whom he was acting, an auction house spokeswoman said.