A Picasso smashes art auction record in $179.4 million sale

A Picasso oil painting from 1955 smashed the record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction when it soared to $179.4 million at Christie's on Monday.

The auction house had estimated "Les femmes d'Alger (Version 'O')" would sell for about $140 million, but several bidders competing via telephone drove the winning bid to $160 million, for a final price of $179,365,000 including Christie's commission of just over 12 percent.

The buyer was not identified.

Giacometti's 1947 sculpture, "L'homme au doigt" (Pointing man), set a new world record for sculpture, selling for $141.3 million, in line with the pre-sale estimate of about $130 million. The old sculpture record was $104.3 million, held by Giacometti's "L'Homme qui marche I" since 2010.

As expected, the Picasso work was the highlight of Christie's special "Looking Forward to the Past" sale, which spanned collecting categories to include artists from Monet to Warhol, with an estimated total of about $500 million for the 35 works on offer.

Bidding for the Picasso started at $100 million, as deep-pocketed collectors drove the price steadily upward in $1 million increments. The same work was last auctioned in 1997, when it sold for $31.9 million, which was nearly three times its pre-sale estimate.

Previously the most expensive work sold at auction was Francis Bacon's triptych "Three Studies of Lucian Freud," which sold for $142.4 million at Christie's in November 2013.

Another Picasso, "Buste de femme (Femme a la resille)" fetched $67.4 million, beating the high estimate of $55 million.