Three Studies of Lucian Freud, a triptych from 1969, eclipses Munch's The Scream as most expensive work ever auctioned
Francis Bacon's three-panelled painting Three Studies of Lucian Freud has become the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction, soaring to US$142.4m at Christie's.
The 1969 triptych, never before offered at auction, had carried a pre-sale estimate of about $85m. In the end it easily eclipsed the $119.9m price of Edvard Munch's The Scream, achieved in May 2012 year at Sotheby's. The previous record for a Bacon work of art was $86.3m set in 2008.
The monumental painting depicts the Dublin-born painter's friend and fellow artist Lucian Freud on a chair, with a view from each side and one face-on. Christie's called it "a true masterpiece that marks Bacon and Freud's relationship" and their "creative and emotional kinship".
With bidding starting at a whopping $80m, it sold after a protracted bidding war both in the packed New York salesroom and via telephone. Christie's did not disclose the identity of the successful buyer.
Three Studies of Lucian Freud is also one of only two existing full-length triptychs of Freud, a grandson of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and the three panels were separated for 15 years in the 1970s before being reunited, Christie's said.
The auction set another significant record, for a price achieved at auction by any living artist, when Jeff Koons's large sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) fetched $58.4m, beating the high pre-sale estimate and smashing the old mark for a living artist of $37.1m set by Gerhard Richter's Domplatz, Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan) earlier in 2013.
Auction officials have said that new, deep-pocketed collectors from around the globe are driving prices for top-tier works to record levels.
At a recent preview Christie's head of postwar and contemporary art, Brett Gorvy, noted that collectors from Asia, Russia and the Middle East flush with cash were determined to assemble world-class collections featuring trophy works.
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