New York:
A Francis Bacon painting of a man and his reflection brought in USD 44.9 million at Sotheby's in New York, capping a week of breathtaking sales in the luxury art market.
Bacon's "Figure Writing Reflected in a Mirror" was one of the three pillars at the Manhattan auction and had a pre-sale estimate of USD 30 million to USD 40 million.
After slow bidding, the hammer finally fell at USD 40 million, to which commissions were added to make the final price yesterday.
A Roy Lichtenstein close up of a blonde woman titled "Sleeping Girl," executed in the Pop art king's typical cartoon style, also fetched USD 44.9 million, including commission, a new record for Lichtenstein.
"She is beautiful," auctioneer Tobias Meyer said of the figure in the painting.
Mr Meyer returned to that word after the auction, telling journalists: "The high end of the market performs beautifully."
It does. Even if world equity markets and governments across the West remain jittery over their financial future, the international art market is in giddy form, leaving the fallout from the 2008 stock markets crash a distant memory.
Wednesday's auction brought in a total of USD266.6 million, double the USD 128 million from the same May contemporary sale last year, Sotheby's said.
"That's a great indication for where the contemporary art market is moving," Alex Rotter, head of contemporary art at Sotheby's in New York, noted.
However, even Sotheby's couldn't match the fireworks at rival Christie's on Tuesday, when records fell in droves and Mark Rothko's "Orange, red, yellow" sold for USD86.9 million, becoming the most expensive contemporary work ever auctioned.
One of the biggest draws at Sotheby's was billed as Andy Warhol's "Double Elvis," which pictures the rock and roll legend as a cowboy gunslinger. It was estimated to go for between USD 30 million and USD50 million and ended up selling for a respectable, if muted USD37 million -nowhere near the Warhol record of USD 71.7 million.
A string of unsold works on Wednesday added to the slightly damper accent of the evening when compared to Christie's, which saw 14 artists' records broken.
Also, at Christie's, the night's total takings of USD 388.5 million were the highest ever for a contemporary art auction, a record last set in 2007.