Art collectors continued lavish spending as the spring art auctions wrapped up at Christie's, where an oil by Piet Mondrian set an artist's record.
Mondrian's work sold for $US50.6 million (NZ$67.9 million) yesterday and went far towards the New York auction house's $US202.6 million Impressionist and modern sale total.
With 43 works on offer, only three failed to sell, while Christie's exceeded its high pre-sale estimate by more than $US40 million.
The result capped two weeks of sales that have brought in well over $US2 billion at Christie's and rival Sotheby's, with Christie's boasting a new record for history's top auction price with Picasso's Les femmes d'Alger (The Women of Algiers Version 'O') , which fetched $US179.4 million.
The auction house alone took in more than $US1.3 billion during the course of its Monday and Wednesday evening sales.
"This sale marks a record-setting week for the global auction market," said Brooke Lampley, head of Impressionist and modern art of Thursday's strong result.
Officials said international demand by a growing pool of relatively new collectors competing with more established ones for a fixed supply of masterpieces had driven prices at the art market's top echelons to record levels.
Sotheby's said Asian buyers had accounted for more than 30% of its evening sales, most notably van Gogh's L'Allée des Alyscamps, which sold for $US66.3 million last week to a mainland Chinese buyer.
The auction house logged its second-best results ever at both its Impressionist/modern and post-war/contemporary sales.
The highlight at Christie's, as expected, was Mondrian's Composition No. III, with Red, Blue, Yellow, and Black, which soared far beyond its estimate of $US15 million to $US25 million as six international bidders competed.
At $US50.6 million, it obliterated Mondrian's auction record of $US27.6 million, which had stood since 2009.
Modigliani's canvas Beatrice Hastings also did well, selling for $US16.1 million against a high estimate of $US10 million, while Fernand Léger's Le corsage rouge similarly outperformed expectations, selling for just under $US17 million including Christie's commission of just over 12%.
