A new world record for a painting by Oxhey's royal artist Beatrice Parsons has been set at Sotheby's in New York.

The Mormons paid 78,000 dollars,or £38,812, for the religious work, Annunciation.

The three feet nine inches by six feet picture - which cost just £210 when it was unveiled at a Royal Academy exhibition in London in 1899 - was snapped up by the Mormon-controlled Brigham Young University Museum of Art at Provo, Utah. The museum is named after the Mormons' founder, Brigham Young(1801-1877, who had 52 wives and 57 children,at the last count.

It took Miss Parsons - of Kingsfield Road,Oxhey -three years,from 1897 to 1899, to produce her masterpiece.

Miss Parsons's work was also much admired by the late Queen Mary.

The present Queen, Queen Mary's grand-daughter, now owns 30 watercolours by Miss Parsons,who lived and worked at Oxhey until her death on February 17,1955.

Until this week,the world record for a Parsons painting was £20,700,the sum paid for the same picture, Annunciation, at Sotheby's in London on June 5, 1996.