A painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau that had been missing for 160 years sold for a record 12.4 million pounds ($24.4 million) with fees at a London sale tonight by Christie's International.

``La Surprise,'' a 14-inch-high oil-on-panel of lovers embracing beside a man tuning a guitar, had been expected to fetch between 3 million pounds and 5 million pounds at the Christie's Old Master paintings auction, according to the catalog. It was bought by London dealer Jean-Luc Baroni.

``Great condition, great provenance and what a fantastic subject,'' said Baroni, who added that he purchased it for an unnamed private collector.

The painting, dating from about 1718, had been found last year by Christie's specialists in the corner of a drawing room of a British country house which the auction house would not name. It was sold at an auction in Paris in 1801, documented in a will in 1848 and then assumed to have been destroyed. It had originally been owned by Nicolas Henin, an adviser to King Louis XV.

Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of the ``fete galante,'' bittersweet scenes of lovers dressed in theatrical costumes in idyllic landscapes. He died of tuberculosis in 1721, aged 36.

The previous auction record for Watteau was the 2.4 million pounds with fees paid for ``Le Conteur'' at Christie's London in December 2000, said the saleroom result tracker Artnet.