Max Beckmann's self-portrait that he painted after he fled Nazi Germany sold for $24.5 million on Thursday, a record price for a painting auctioned in Germany.

The Berlin auctioneers had estimated that "Self-portrait" in yellow-pink, painted in 1943, would attract bids of between $21 million and $31 million.

Beckmann, widely viewed as a major modern artist of the last century, painted it while in exile in Amsterdam.

After the Nazis branded his paintings "degenerate art," Beckmann and his wife, Mathilde, known as "Quappi," fled Germany in 1937. Waiting in Amsterdam for years for a visa to the United States, Beckmann worked under adverse circumstances.

In the portrait, Beckmann departed from his usual dark colors and painted himself wearing a yellow fabric. His distant gaze, meditation-like pose, and almost bald head are reminiscent of a Buddhist monk, said the auction house.

The auction house has said the artwork's provenance is impeccable, as the artist gave it to his wife who loved it so much she kept it until she died in 1986.

Eventually, a private collection in Switzerland purchased the painting before entrusting it to Villa Grisebach.

Auctioneers hope the large sale will boost Germany's art market, which trails New York, London and Paris.

In 2018, Villa Grisebach obtained the highest auction price to date for a painting in Germany when it sold Max Beckmann's "The Egyptian" for nearly $6 million.