Christie's Rakes in $138M

Capping a week of record-breaking auctions, last night's sale of postwar and contemporary art at Christie's in London brought in $138 million, the highest total ever for the category in Europe.

Francis Bacon's "Study for Portrait II" sold for a hammer price of $24.6 million. The unpublished estimate, according to Bloomberg, was around 12 million pounds. The sale, to Andrew Fabricant of the Richard Gray Gallery in New York, was an auction record for the artist and the second highest price for a postwar work of art at auction.

All but two of the 84 lots in the auction sold. The other big sales of the evening included two Warhols, "Brigitte Bardot" and "Three Women," and a Rothko work on paper, which sold for $6.6 million.

While the sales this week underlined Europe's continuing importance in the art market, other recent developments pointed to an increasingly global future: Last week, Christie's second sale in Dubai of international modern and contemporary art netted $9.4 million. In order not to be left out of this new market, Sotheby's this week announced the appointment of a director for the Middle East and Gulf regions.