A painting originally handed over by Francis Bacon to cover the rent on his west London studio was the highlight of a record-breaking Christie's auction of post-war and contemporary art overnight.
Study from the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light - which Bacon originally gave to the Royal College of Art in 1969 as rent for a Cromwell Road studio - fetched 8,084,500 pounds ($18,159,693).
The Christie's auction totalled 39.8 million pounds.
That total was double the previous high for an October Christie's post-war and contemporary art sale, and comes amid a bumper week of such auctions from Christie's and its competitor Sotheby's.
"The increasing interest in collecting art has been fuelled by an unprecedented breadth and depth of the international collecting community," said Pilar Ordovas, head of post-war and contemporary art at Christie's.
"We continue to see confidence in the international art market, notably the post-war and contemporary art segment, with strong prices achieved for top quality and sensibly estimated works."
The proceeds from the Bacon artwork, which had been expected to fetch between 7 and 9 million pounds, will be invested by the Royal College of Art into a new campus being constructed in west London.
Along with the traditional February and June sales of contemporary and impressionist art, the contemporary art sales this month are timed to coincide with the four-day Frieze art fair in London's Regent's Park, which ended on Sunday.
Eight years ago, the October sales generated between 1 and 2 million pounds.
By comparison, a Sotheby's auction on Friday and another sale on Monday are expected to fetch between 48 and 68 million pounds - a record - according to pre-sale estimates.
Yue Minjun's Execution - based on the 1989 Tiananment Square protests in Beijing - alone fetched 2,932,500 pounds, smashing the record for a Chinese contemporary artwork in a Sotheby's sale on Friday.
In addition to well-known artists like Bacon, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, David Hockney, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Banksy and Damien Hirst, the sales are also offering works from other parts of the world, with a strong Italian and Chinese presence. © 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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