A prolonged-ignored portray regarded for decades as the get the job done of Sandro Botticelli’s studio assistants sold at Sotheby’s in New York on Thursday for $45.4 million with costs, kick-starting off this year’s cycle of headline-grabbing prices for trophy artworks at auction. Now billed as a “seminal masterpiece” by the Italian renaissance grasp, Botticelli’s tempera-on-panel “The Man of Sorrows,” a solemn 50 percent-duration depiction of the resurrected Christ, was the standout function in a 55-lot sale of previous learn paintings and sculpture Thursday. Selected to offer for at the very least $40 million, many thanks to a minimum amount and prearranged “irrevocable bid” from a third-party guarantor, the painting…