Would you pay $3.5 million for an old stump?

Group of Seven founding member Lawren Harris was a major draw at the second-most-successful Heffel Fine Art live auction ever last night in Toronto.

Four original works by Harris were included in the auction, which saw 26 price records set.

Combined, all four pieces sold for almost $9 million.

Toronto art historian Ash Prakash paid $3.5 million for Harris' 1926 sketch The Old Stump, Lake Superior, which was later used as the basis for his iconic painting North Shore, Lake Superior (shown).

The price Prakash paid for the Harris sketch set a record for the most money ever paid for any Group of Seven work, making it the second-most valuable piece in Canadian art auction history.

Prakash bought two other Harris pieces, Iceberg, Baffin's Bay North and In Buchanan Bay, Ellesemere Island, both from 1930.

He also purchased Harris colleague Tom Thomson's 1917 sketch Early Spring, Canoe Lake, for which he paid $2.8 million.