Leonora Carrington painting auctioned for £22.5m in record for British-born female artists

Les Distractions de Dagobert was the surrealist's definitive masterpiece', says Sotheby's expert in New York

She was worshipped as a muse by renowned surrealists including Andre Breton and Max Ernst, but the Lancashire-born artist Leonora Carrington quickly shrugged off the label to achieve an unprecedented level of mastery and freedom in her own painting.

Now, on the 100th anniversary of Breton's publication of the Surrealist Manifesto, Carrington has become the most valuable British-born female artist at auction after one of her paintings sold for more than 22.5m.