Never underestimate the power of pretty women.
A painting by Pablo Picasso has set a new world record for the most expensive artwork to be sold at an auction after reaching $179 million (Rs 1,147 crore) in New York.
The oil painting, The Women of Algiers (Version 0), sold for $179,365,000 after more than 11 minutes of furious bidding from telephone buyers at a packed auction room at Christie’s.
Applause erupted when the sale was finalised in an atmosphere of feverish excitement, accompanied by laughter and jokes, fetching way over its pre-sale estimate of $179 million.
Previously the most expensive work sold at auction was Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which sold for $142.4 million (Rs 912 crore) at Christie’s in November 2013, as well as the earlier record of $120 million (Rs 769 crore) for Edvard Munch’s tortured Scream.
The sale also featured Alberto Giacometti’s life-size sculpture Pointing Man, which sold for $141 million (Rs 903 crore), earning it the title of most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction. The buyers of neither of the works was immediately made public.
Swiss sculptor Giacometti beat his own record for the most expensive sculpture sold at auction, his Walking Man I fetching $104.3 million in London in 2010.
