Bacon's painting sells for record $86.2mn at NYC auction

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A three-panel masterpiece- "Triptych, 1976"- by Francis Bacon on Wednesday broke a record for contemporary art auctions after three bidders bought the work for a whopping $86.28 million, surpassing an estimate of $70 million by Sotheby’s.

The $86,281,000 price for the 1976 triptych painting also set record for the Irish-born artist, said Lauren Gioia, a spokeswoman for Sotheby’s big spring contemporary art sale. It also beat the previous record for Bacon's work "Study for Innocent X, 1952", which was sold last year at Sotheby's auction house for 52.7 million dollars.

"The world has been waiting for a great Bacon triptych, and this is it," Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's worldwide head of contemporary art, said in April in a statement advertising the sale.

Everyone in Sotheby’s cavernous salesroom was excited to see the “Triptych, 1976”- a vast and densely painted allegorical subject. Each of the three panels of the painting measures about 6.5 by 5 feet.

Sotheby’s had estimated the painting would sell for $70 million; the hammer price was $77 million and it sold for more than $86 million after three bidders vied for it.

The buyers were anonymous and the prices included the commission paid to Sotheby’s: 25% of the first $20,000, 20% of the next $20,000 to $500,000 and 12% of the rest.

The painting, which is full of symbolism and draws on ancient Greek mythology, depicts a Promethean headless body being attacked by a bird of prey in the central panel; in the panel to either side, a blurred face looms, bearing witness to the violence.

The bidding price of “Triptych, 1976” also rocketed past the $72.8 million auction record for contemporary art, which was held by Mark Rothko's White Centre (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) that sold for $US72.84 million at Sotheby's in May 2007. Rothko died in 1970.

Bacon, who died in 1992 at 82, is generally considered the father of modern science and one of Britain's most important 20th century artists.