FAQ: Why Does Francis Bacon's Art Auction Record Matter?

Three Studies of Lucian Freud, a triptych painting by the late British artist Francis Bacon, sold on Tuesday at a Christie’s auction in New York City for $142,405,000.

It’s currently the most expensive piece of art ever auctioned, globally. And it was record-setting even before a winner was declared, with a prebid asking price of $85 million, the highest in auction history. Three Studies easily beat the former best-selling painting, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which sold at Sotheby’s in New York last year for $119 million. Although to be fair, if you adjust for inflation, the Three Studies sale isn’t all that historic: Vincent Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet sold at Christie’s in 1990 for $82.5 million, which is roughly $149.5 million in 2013 dollars. Also, works in private auction regularly go for insane amounts, with the supposed record being Paul Cézanne’s The Card Players, which reportedly sold to Qatar’s royal family for more than $250 million in 2011 (nothing’s been made official on that one).