It’s been a good week for auction houses. On Tuesday, a triptych by painter Francis Bacon sold for $142.4 million, making it the most expensive piece of artwork ever sold at auction. And, on Wednesday, an Andy Warhol painting set a personal best for the late-pop artist when it was auctioned off for $105 million. The record-setting Warhol piece, titled “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)” is a series of images depicting the immediate aftermath of a car crash. The sale price seemed to have even surpassed Sotheby’s auction house’s pre-auction expectations that the piece could “fetch $60 million or more.” Warhol’s work made a rare public appearance at auction as it has only been seen in public once in the last 26 years, according to the Associated Press.
The market for Warhol’s works is apparently hot, two other Warhol pieces–“Coca-Cola (3)” and a portrait of Elizabeth Taylor–sold for $57.2 million and $20 million respectively this week. But, it’s not just Warhol who’s demanding record prices, the AP reports, as “over the past 10 days, auction houses around the world have presided over bids totaling nearly $2 billion for art and jewelry, Sotheby’s said. Christie’s said Tuesday’s sale brought in more than $691.5 million, the highest total for any single auction in history.”
