FROM

arts

Click link below picture
.

 A 1969 painting by Francis Bacon set a world record for most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

“Three Studies of Lucian Freud” was purchased for $142,405,000 at Christie’s postwar and contemporary art sale on Tuesday night. The triptych depicts Bacon’s artist friend.

The work sold after “6 minutes of fierce bidding in the room and on the phone,” Christie’s said in a statement. The price includes the buyer’s premium. Christie’s did not say who bought the painting.

The price surpassed the nearly $120 million paid for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” which set a world record when it was sold at Sotheby’s in a 2012 sale.

The previous record for Bacon’s artwork sold at auction was his 1976 “Triptych.” That sold for $86 million in 2008.

Among other highlights scheduled to be auctioned at Christie’s is a bright orange-yellow and white oil painting by Mark Rothko. Reminiscent of a radiating sunset, the 1957 large-scale “Untitled (No. 11)” could fetch up to $35 million. In May 2012, Christie’s sold Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” for $86.8 million, a record for any contemporary artwork at auction.

.
Francis Bacon Painting

Peter Macdiarmid via Getty Images
A cameraman films Francis Bacon’s ‘Three Studies of Lucien Freud’ on display at Christie’s on October 14, 2013 in London, England. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)
.
.
Click link below for story, video and slideshow:
.
__________________________________________