Bacon, Doig, Freud Works Soar in $126 Million Christie’s Sale

Works by Francis Bacon, Peter Doig and Lucian Freud helped Christie’s International raise 78.8 million pounds ($126 million) at an auction in London last night. It was the company’s highest total for a sale of contemporary works in the U.K. capital since June 2008.

The top seller was Bacon’s “Study for a Portrait,” a precursor of the Irish-born artist’s “Pope” paintings, offered by the Swiss entrepreneur and collector Donald M. Hess. The painting sold to a telephone bidder represented by Christie’s specialist Sandra Nedvetskaia, who deals with Russian clients, for 18 million pounds, against two other telephone bidders. The 1953 work was estimated at about 11 million pounds.