Spanish painter Joan Miro's 85-year old painting, Peinture (Étoile Bleue), was auctioned Tuesday for a record 23.6 million pounds ($36.9 million) at the age-old auction house Sotheby's.
An anonymous telephone bidder outbid three others to finally take home the abstract work of Miro. The painting was part of Miro's 'dream paintings' created in 1927 - a period in which the artist introduced his unique poetic form of abstraction.
In a statement, Sotheby's said that the sum paid was the highest price for a work of art sold in London thus far this year. Miro's painting also beat the artist's previous record set in February when his 1925 work "Painting-Poem" was sold for 16.8 million pounds.
Tuesday evening also saw some other works auctioned at Sotheby's such as Henry Moore's 'Mother and Child with Apple,' which was sold for $5.8 million. Pablo Picasso's 'Homme Assis' sold for $9.8 million - the second highest for the day.
Wassily Kandinsky's work comprising rare water colors sold for $7.6 million, while Pierre Bonnard's Nu Debout, a 1930 piece, fetched nearly $7.1 million.
The auction house's sales for the day reached over $117 million. In all, Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art sales totaled $692.6 million for the current year, a 12.4 percent increase from last year.
On Tuesday, Sotheby sold 23 pieces of art-work for a million or more and witnessed 33 percent of the works selling at prices above their high estimates.
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