The disgraced media baron Lord Black of Crossharbour had another 15 minutes of fame, as he prepares to go to jail, when a portrait of him by Andy Warhol was sold to pay off his debts.

The 40in by 40in (100cm by 100cm) silkscreen, one of four he commissioned from the pop artist in 1981, fetched $240,000 (£116,000) at Christie’s, New York.

The silver portrait once hung outside Black’s office in Toronto, but he was forced to part with it to settle debts as he awaited trial in America for fraud and obstruction of justice.

He will be sentenced on November 30.

The portrait was bought by Los Angeles dealer Michael Kohn. “I thought it would be great to have a felon hanging on my wall,” he said.

Warhol approached Black, then 37, through the wife of a former US ambassador to Canada after seeing his photograph in a magazine article about prominent Canadians. Black, who was to build his global newspaper empire with the acquisition of The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator in Britain, hosted a dinner for Warhol, where the artist took his picture with a Polaroid.

The two maintained what seemed an unlikely friendship, with Black lunching at Warhol’s New York Factory. “I found Andy a delightful man. At this point he was off the drugs, quite serious without being stiff and was a very astute observer,” Black told the Toronto Globe and Mail.

The image of Black could not compete at auction with the prices fetched by Warhol’s silkscreens of superstars.

On Tuesday a Warhol portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, owned by the actor Hugh Grant, sold for $23.5 million, including buyer’s commission. The 1963 Elvis 2 Timesfetched $15.7 million, and Muhammad Ali $8.2 million.

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