Glenn Ligon
Glenn Ligon, "Stranger #44" Glenn Ligon

Jennifer Aniston has again made celebrity news magazine headlines after she purchased a $450,000 painting with her boyfriend Justin Theroux at an auction on Thursday.

Celebrity gossip aside, it was a noteworthy purchase for the work's artistic value and a credit to Aniston's taste. So what is the painting? And was it worth the price?

The painting, seen left, is called Stranger #44 and is the work of artist Glenn Ligon. Ligon is one of the most important contemporary American artists alive, and an exhibition on his work titled Glenn Ligon: AMERICA just ended at the Whitney Museum in New York. The $450,000 sale was, however, a record price for his work.

The previous record for Ligon's work was $434,500, spent during a Sotheby’s auction in September 2010.

Stranger #44 was purchased at Ben Stiller and David Zwirner’s Artists For Haiti charity auction at Christie’s. Although Aniston's winning bid was high, it wasn't the highest of the night.

A piece by Raymond Pettibon titled No Title (From life to…) sold for $760,000, a price dwarfed only by his work No Title (But the sand), which went for $820,000.

The whole event raised $13.7 million. Other famous buyers included John McEnroe and Ben Stiller himself, who purchased works by Jeff Koons and Martin Kippenberger.