BERLIN The most expensive painting ever sold, Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" is not missing as feared but was sold early this year to a U.S. buyer, German Radio reported Thursday. The painting was sold in the United States for between 10 billion and 15 billion yen ($87 million to $130 million) to a man who wished to remain anonymous, ARD quoted Kiyonori Yamamoto, president of the International Auction Organization in Tokyo, as saying.

The buyer has no plans to display it publicly, said Yamamoto, who helps cash-strapped Japanese businesses and private citizens find buyers for art they purchased during the booming 1980s. In 1990, Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito paid $82.5 million at an auction for "Portrait of Dr. Gachet", the most ever paid for a painting. Saito, the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Co., said he stored it in a warehouse after looking at it once.

Six years later, he died at age 79. It is unclear if anyone has seen the Van Gogh since. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York tried to find the painting for its current exhibition, museum officials could not locate the masterpiece, the Philadelphia inquirer reported Sunday. The exhibition catalog noted the absence with the words "present location unknown." (AP)