episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Other popular paintings of oriental figures were Miss Wong, Lady from Orient, and Balinese Girl. He said of British prima ballerina assoluta, Alicia Markova, who sat for Alicia Markova "The Dying Swan", that she was his most stimulating sitter. Books In 1973, Tretchikoff published his autobiography, Pigeon's Luck, with Anthony Hocking, an account of his wartime experiences. The book was painstakingly researched by Hocking, who contacted people in more than 21 countries. In 2013, the first complete biography of the artist, Incredible Tretchikoff by Boris Gorelik, was published in London by Art / Books and in Cape Town by Tafelberg. Revival Interest in his artworks underwent a resurgence in the late 1990s as part of a revival of 1950s and 1960s retro decor. In 1998 Sotheby's of Johannesburg sold an oil-on-canvas still life for $1800, double what they expected. In 1999 Zulu Maiden was expected to fetch $1800 but went for $10,000. In October 2002 another original fetched $18,000<ref>"The Comeback King of Kitsch", Sunday Magazine (Sunday Herald Sun/Sunday Telegraph, July 13, 2003.</ref> and in May 2008, Fruits of Bali earned $480,000 at Stephan Welz & Co in Cape Town. The most expensive Tretchikoff painting to date is Chinese Girl which went for nearly £1,000,000 at Bonhams, London in March 2013. The previous record was Red Jacket, which fetched £337,250 in October 2012, also at Bonhams.That record was soon broken at the same auction house. In March 2013, Chinese Girl was sold for GBP 982,050.It was bought by Laurence Graff, the British businessman and jeweller, who owns the Delaire Graff Estate near Stellenbosch in South Africa, where the picture is displayed. Death and legacy Tretchikoff suffered a stroke in 2002 that left him unable to paint, and died on 26 August 2006 in Cape Town, his home since 1946. He was survived by his wife Natalie, his daughter Mimi (b. 1938), four granddaughters and five great-grandchildren. Natalie Tretchikoff died on 18 July 2007. The South African National Gallery never acquired an original Tretchikoff because they did not "really regard Tretchikoff as a South African artist". In Esme Berman's book, Art and Artists of Southern Africa, he is discussed in little more than two lines, under the heading "popular artists". Tretchikoff once said that the only difference between himself and Vincent van Gogh was that Van Gogh had starved whereas he had become rich. Illusionist Uri