To see the painting : {http://bit.ly/17T2703}
A 1969 triptych by the British artist Francis Bacon sold for $142.4m on Tuesday night, smashing the record for an artwork sold at auction – the $120m paid last year for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”.
Bidding for Lot 8A – “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” – began at $80m, and still had seven prospective collectors vying for a sale when offers reached $100m, to the awe of the crowd that had assembled at Christie’s in New York. William Acquavella, the New York dealer, eventually bought the three oil-on-canvas panels on the behalf of an unidentified foreign customer. Two disappointed bidders, including rival art dealer Larry Gagosian, promptly left the packed room. The hammer came down at $127m for the paintings, which have never before been offered at auction and depict Lucian Freud, Bacon’s friend and rival, sitting on a wooden chair. The bidder’s premium, traditionally 12 per cent on works over $1m, brought the aggregate price to $142.4m. The star lot of a sale that fetched $691.5m – above Christie’s initial $670.4m high estimate and a new record for a postwar and contemporary art evening sale – was just one of several that broke new ground for the booming global auction market. World auction records were set for 10 artists. Jeff Koons became the most expensive living artist when his “Balloon Dog (Orange)” sold to a telephone collector for $58.4m from the collection of Peter Brandt, while Willem de Kooning, Donald Judd and Christopher Wool all eclipsed previous records for their works made at previous sales. Another standout work, “Coca Cola (3)” by Andy Warhol, sold for $57.3m, one of only four casein on cottons of a single Coca-Cola bottle that the artist made in 1961 and 1962. Of the 69 works on offer, six failed to sell. The results of the much touted sale will come as relief to Christie’s, the private London-based auctioneers owned by luxury magnate François-Henri Pinault, after a dismal start to the autumn season last week. One-quarter of the lots featured in their $144.2m impressionist and modern evening auction last week failed to sell, amid accusations of sky-high valuations and a mixed quality of works on offer. By contrast, arch-rival auction house Sotheby’s delivered stellar results less than 24 hours later, selling 92 per cent of all works and garnering $290.2m worth of sales. Their New York post-war and contemporary sale will take place on Wednesday.