The world's most expensive art goes to auction: Why records keep being broken

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It's a warm evening back in mid-May. A few stray latecomers are just finding their seats as Christie's auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen starts up the bidding. "Wonderful painting," he says. "One hundred million to open it."

And so it begins, the numbers rising quickly: one hundred five, one hundred ten, one hundred fifteen million. One hundred twenty.

Suddenly the bidding for Picasso's brightly-colored 1955 "Les Femmes d'Alger" stops. The room is still. Someone on the telephone offers $121 million. "Why not?" laughs the auctioneer.

And on the numbers rise again, past $130 million, past $140 million, $147 million, $148 million. By now, the bidding is between anonymous buyers on the telephone with Christie's experts.

At $159 million, just as Pylkkanen calls "fair warning," a caller raises the stakes: "$159.5 million. A second later, a counterbid closes the sale at $160 million, and applause rocks the room.

With premium, the buyer will pay a total of $179.4 million, making this the most expensive painting ever purchased at auction.

What's striking about this sale, however, is not just the record-breaking figure. It's that such sums paid for important works of art are becoming almost commonplace.

Only six months later, on 9 November, Chinese taxi driver-turned-billionaire Liu Yiqian buys Amedeo Modigliani's "Nu Couché for $174.4 million, also at Christie's New York.

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