To date this year, there have been several surprises at the performances of several auctions. New sale records, as well as disappointing results, have been part of the auction scene. The painting Triptych (1976) by Irish painter Francis Bacon surprisingly became, at 86,281 million USD, the most expensive contemporary art work ever sold by the New York auction house, Sotheby¿s, making Francis Bacon the contemporary artist with the work with the highest selling price in the history of any auction. Triptych was exhibited for the first time in Paris in 1976, where it was bought by the Moeuix family, owners of the Château Pétrus winery. The work belonged to the family until this past May 14, when three bidders determinedly drove the auction price up as they clung to their cell phones to the very end. The work ended up in the hands of a European collector whose name has not been made public. This amazing sale took place just a few months before the 100th anniversary of the birth of Francis Bacon, who was born in 1909. To celebrate this occasion, the Royal Palace of Milan in Italy is exhibiting an anthology of Bacon¿s work. The total amount brought in by this contemporary art auction was 362 million USD, reaching a milestone in the unstoppable contemporary art market, and demonstrating that the U.S. economic crisis has not affected the art trade. Similarly, British painter Lucian Freud became the best selling living artist after the sale of his work Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, painted in 1995 and sold by the Christie¿s auction house for 33.6 million USD, far exceeding the previous record set by Jeff Koons¿ Hanging Heart (1994¿2006) sculpture, a giant red metal heart weighting over 3,500 pounds that hangs from the ceiling tied by a gold undulating bow. It was sold in auction by Sotheby¿s-New York for 23.6 million USD. Benefits Supervisor Sleeping is regarded as the most important work by Freud yet sold at auction. It is a portrait of Sue Tilley, a benefits supervisor from London, who posed for the artist on several occasions. In this instance, she does so by lying down on a sofa in the nude. To that point, the most expensive work by this artist was Lb and Her Husband, sold in November 2007 for 19.3 million USAD. At the Christie¿s auction, entitled Post-War and Contemporary Art, there were also other important sales, such as Nº 15, by Mark Rothko, which sold for 50.4 million USD, Double Marlon by Andy Warhol, which sold for 32.5 million USD, and Three Studies for Self-Portrait by Francis Bacon. Also noteworthy are the sale records set on Tuesday, May 6, at Christie¿s in New York, where Claude Monet¿s painting Le Pont Sur le Chemin de Fer D´Argenteuil sold for 41.4 million USD. Likewise, La Caresse Des Étoiles by Joan Miró ¿ created during the Spanish Civil War ¿ was auctioned for 17 million USD and Alberto Giacometti¿s bronze sculpture Grande Femme Debout II was sold for 27.4 million USD, while another bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, Eve, Grand Mod_Le-Version Sans Roche, surpassed the 18.9 million USD mark. There were disappointments, nevertheless, such as the sale of Portrait with a Blue Coat (1935), the main portrait by Matisse of Lydia Delectorskaya, his assistant and preferred model, which sold for the unexpectedly low amount of 22.4 million USD. The Latin-American Art Auction organized by the Christie¿s auction house received a welcome surprise when the painting Troubadour by Rufino Tamayo was auctioned for the amount of 7.3 million USD, thus breaking the sales record for a work by this Mexican or any other Latin-American artist. To that point, the highest sale of an auctioned Latin-American work had been Roots (1943) by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, which sold for 5.6 million USD during a 2006 Sotheby¿s auction in New York. Rufino Tamayo¿s Troubadour, created in 1945, became the centerpiece during the first day of sales of Latin-American art works. This was not only due to that it was an ...