June 25 (Bloomberg) -- Christie's International sold 90 percent of its offered works by artists such as Francis Bacon and Mark Rothko, taking in 14.1 million pounds ($25.7 million) and breaking records for Anish Kapoor, Emilio Vedova and Eduardo Chillida at a London auction of contemporary art last night.

The top-priced lot was Bacon's ``Three Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne,'' a 1966 triptych portrait valued as high as 2 million pounds that brought 2.4 million pounds, after adding Christie's commission, from an unnamed U.S. dealer. The auction competed with the England-Portugal Euro 2004 soccer game and people started leaking out of London-based Christie's King Street rooms halfway through the event.

The sale showed demand is still strong for Postwar and Contemporary art after a trebling of prices since 1997. A new generation of bankers and entrepreneurs is willing to pay up for art it can relate to, auction specialists said.

``The numbers speak for themselves,'' said Fernando Mignoni, Christie's head of Postwar and Contemporary art, in an interview after the sale. The auction house last year took 9.3 million pounds from its London sale of art of the past 60 years.

Christie's sale came on the fourth day of a week of London summer auctions of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art that is expected to fetch as much as 180 million pounds. Christie's holds a second sale of Contemporary art this morning.

Rothko Painting

Rothko's ``Untitled,'' a canvas covered in green-black tempera with blue edges that dates a year before the Russian-born U.S. artist died in 1970, fetched 923,650 pounds, compared with a top estimate of 650,000 pounds. It was bought by an unnamed U.S. investor. Kapoor's ``Untitled,'' an alabaster sculpture lit from behind, took 229,250 pounds, reaching Christie's top estimate before the commission and breaking a record for the London artist, born in Bombay in 1954.

Some dealers who viewed the art on offer this week by the auction houses said they were suffering from sticker shock. ``It's mostly too expensive for me,'' said Manfred Wietz, a German art dealer. Dealers, unlike buyers seeking art for their living-room walls, must make a profit from their purchases.

Sotheby's on Wednesday night took in 14.1 million pounds from its Contemporary auction of 43 lots, compared with Christie's 50 lots. Eighteen bidders on the telephones and in Sotheby's rooms on New Bond Street competed for a Frank Auerbach portrait. By comparison, Christie's drew four to six bidders for its most popular works by Luc Tuymans and Marlene Dumas, Mignoni said.

Highest Prices

Earlier 20th-century art still draws the highest prices. Pablo Picasso's ``Garcon a la Pipe'' sold on May 5 for $104.2 million. Yet an index of the 25 percent most-expensive Modern paintings kept by London data firm Art Market Research shows they are lower than at their peak of August 2003, while top-priced works from the past six decades are headed higher.

At Christie's sale of Impressionist and Modern art on Tuesday night, one-third of the works failed to sell.

In addition to the hammer prices, Christie's charges art buyers a commission of 19.5 percent on values up to 70,000 pounds and 12 percent on the rest of the hammer price.

Vedova's ``Dal Ciclo Della Protesta,'' a 1958 abstract painting in swirls of greenish black, red and yellow, took a record 212,450 pounds last night, compared with Christie's top estimate of 150,000 pounds. The Italian artist was born in 1919.

Chillida's 1984 ``Mural G-46,'' with a network of black lines stained into the surface of fired clay blocks, sold for 363,650 pounds, missing the top estimate before Christie's commission while setting an auction record for a terra cotta work by the Spanish artist, who died in 2002.

Dumas, Tuymans

``Peeping Tom'' by South African-born Dumas, a 1994 oil painting of a crouching nude at a window, fetched 139,650 pounds, beating a high estimate of 80,000 pounds. The artist was born in 1953. ``Illegitimate VIII'' by Belgium's Tuymans took the same price as the Dumas work. The top estimate for the 1997 abstract acrylic painting was 70,000 pounds. Tuymans, whose work is on show at London's Tate Modern museum, was born in 1958.

There were signs that buyers were resisting Christie's top estimates. Andy Warhol's 1986 ``Camouflage Last Supper'' was bought by a European investor for 509,250 pounds, compared with a top estimate of 700,000 pounds. Donald Judd's untitled 1970 sculpture went for 430,850 pounds to a European collector, missing its high estimate of 600,000 pounds.

Damien Hirst's 1993 ``Morphine Sulfate,'' with colored spots in gloss paint on a white ground, fetched 195,650 pounds, missing Christie's low estimate before the commission. ``Flower,'' a lot consisting of eight Warhol graphite drawings, failed to sell.

``Frankly, we were pushing that estimate'' of as much as 200,000 pounds, Mignoni said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 25, 2004 04:48 EDT