One of a series of highly prized,
intimate portraits Picasso painted in 1932 of his lover,
Marie-Thérèse Walter With a $70m to $90m (£44-£57m)
estimate, this one sold to an anonymous buyer and set a record for
any work of art at auction.
2. Giacometti, Walking Man 1
£65 million ($1.3 million US)
Estimated at £12m to £18m, this was
the work sparked a lengthy bidding battle before selling to a
telephone bidder, later identified as the Brazilian billionaire
Lily Safra.
3. Chinese Vase
£51.6 million ($79.5 million US)
Discovered in Pinner, north-west
London, this rare, flashy decorated porcelain vase, probably made
for a palace of the Emperor Qianlong in the 18th century,
attracted Chinese dealers who drove the price to a record for any
Chinese work of art.
4.
Andy Warhol, Men in Her
Life
£39 million ($60 million US)
Experts are puzzling how this
painting, the most expensive in New York's recent contemporary art
sales, made more than Warhol's trademark soup can paintings in the
same week of sales.
5.
J M W Turner, Modern Rome - Campo
Vecchio
£29.7 million ($45.8 million US)
The flow of artwork from Britain's
stately homes continued when this painting, from the collection of
the Earl of Rosebery, sold for an artist's record to the J Paul
Getty Museum.
6.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The
Finding of Moses
£22 million (34 million US)
Highly prized when painted in 1904
but rejected when offered for nothing to British museums in the
Sixties, this painting bounced back to fetch an astonishing record,
10 times its estimate, selling to a Middle Eastern buyer.
7. John Robert Cozens, The Lake of
Albano and Castel Gandolfo
£2.4 million ($3.7 million US)
The star lot from a collection
formed by fertility doctor, Prof Ian Craft, this moody panorama saw
Canadian media tycoon, David Thomson, pay a quadruple estimate,
record price to see off the competition.
8.Frank Auerbach, Mornington Crescent - Summer
Morning
£2.3 million ($3.5 million US)
Auerbach, who will be 80 next year,
has been enjoying a price boom and this was his highest price to
date.
9. Sir Peter Paul Rubens (suspected), Portrait of a
Bearded Man
£692,000 ($1 million US)
Catalogued as a 19th-century
painting in the "manner of Rubens" with a £1,500 estimate, this
sold to dealer Philip Mould, who believed it to be a genuine Rubens
but has yet to exhibit it as such.
10. Ged Quinn - Jonestown Radio
£187,250 ($289,000 US)
White Cube gallery's Jay Jopling,
bought this for about £20,000 in 2005. This was only the third
painting by the 47-year-old Briton to appear at auction. It sold to
an Asian buyer whom Sotheby's said had never heard of Quinn before
this sale.
This information has been kindly
provided by 'dailyartfixx'
www.dailyartfixx.com
'top ten' image by
Sam Churchill ,
thanks Sam
posted 20/06/11