Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- A Francis Bacon painting owned by London's Royal College of Art sold for 7.2 million pounds ($14.7 million) before commission at Christie's International today.

The painting just beat its low estimate of 7 million pounds. A Damien Hirst statue missed its low estimate minutes before.

Christie's valued Bacon's 1974 ``Study From the Human Body, Man Turning on the Light,'' at as much as 9 million pounds, making it the top-priced lot in a five-day marathon of London auctions.

The college will use the money to build facilities for students and art businesses in the Battersea district, Christie's said. The Royal College is one of several schools capitalizing on the boom in art values, including Randolph College in Virginia.

The prices fetched for the U.K. painter, who died in 1992, and also for Hirst shows that some collectors are starting to balk at paying up for the biggest names in the art world after two months of financial-market turbulence. Works by living artists, including Hirst and America's Richard Prince and Jeff Koons, missed their estimates at times over the weekend, or, in the case of Hirst and Koons, failed to sell.

``If the price is right, people will buy,'' said New York dealer Alberto Mugrabi, who sold Hirst's ``Eternity'' butterfly mosaic for 4.2 million pounds pre-commission at Phillips de Pury & Co. yesterday.

Hirst's Bronze

Hirst's ``Wretched War'' from 2004, a 62.5-inch bronze of a partly skinned pregnant woman, was valued at as much as 400,000 pounds by Christie's. One of an edition of 10, it sold for 180,000 pounds pre-commission to dealer Jay Jopling. The lowest estimate was 300,000 pounds.

A large version of the bronze stands outside New York real- estate developer Aby Rosen's Lever House Building.

The contemporary art auctions have been valued by auctioneers at as much as 184 million pounds, or twice as much as last year. They coincide with the Frieze Art Fair, ending today, which lured collectors from Moscow-based plastics magnate Igor Markin and Russian-American billionaire Len Blavatnik to New York hedge-fund manager Adam Sender's curator Todd Levin.

Bacon is the auction world's third most expensive postwar artist after Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol. The record for a Bacon painting was set in May, when Sotheby's sold one of his pope pictures, ``Study for Innocent X,'' for $52.7 million in New York.

Bacon's Rent Payment

Bacon had given the Royal College a painting in lieu of rent for temporary working space when his studio burned down in 1969. They both later agreed to swap it for the work sold today, showing a naked man grasping at a light bulb.

Hirst, 42, became the auction world's priciest living artist in June when a pill cabinet, ``Lullaby Spring,'' took 9.7 million pounds at Sotheby's.

Three other Hirst works sold at or near their low estimates and one, ``Leprosy,'' bought for 270,000 pounds pre-commission by London dealer Helly Nahmad, approached its high estimate. It had been valued at between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds.

Hirst's 1992 ``Allodihydrocortisol,'' handled at different times by dealers Jopling and Barbara Gladstone before the current seller bought it, sold for 520,000 pounds before commission, just over its low estimate of 500,000. It had a top estimate of 700,000. Sotheby's failed to sell a spot painting on Friday.

Several paintings by German artists including two by Martin Kippenberger, whose works are being divested by collectors including Charles Saatchi, failed to sell in the Christie's sale. Some Chinese lots were selling for three or four times their top estimates.

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

Last Updated: October 14, 2007 15:57 EDT