NEW YORK
Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d’Alger broke the world auction record on Monday evening, selling for $179.4 million in New York.
Bidding for the vibrant painting continued for more than 11 minutes before going to an anonymous telephone bidder at Christie’s auction house for $179,365,000.
The cubist masterpiece, designated as Version O, surpassed the $142.4m paid two years ago for Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud.
It was the final finished work from a series inspired by 19th century French master Eugene Delacroix's Les Femmes d’Alger. The Picasso series was painted in homage to fellow artist Henri Matisse, who died in 1954.
The 15 works the Spanish artist created in 1954 and 1955 as part of the series were lettered A to O.
Later in Monday's sale, Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti's 1947 work L’Homme au Doigt sold for $141.2 million, becoming the most expensive sculpture to sell at auction.
