There was more bank-breaking action at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s London auction houses over the last few days. 

Christie’s evening auction of Post-War and Contemporary art managed to rake in $126.5 million, the second highest total for the category at Christie’s London. and a post-2008 high.  A 1955 abstract by Mark Rothko, estimated to go for upwards of $15 million, would have likely pushed the auction to record-breaking heights had it not been withdrawn last minute as a private deal was brokered.

A work by Francis Bacon--the U.K.’s most expensive artist at auction--his sexually charged “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes” from 1963, was the biggest sale of the evening, going for over $33.4 million.  A less provocative work by Bacon “Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne,“ 1983, sold just below estimate at $2.7 million.

American artist Christopher Wool achieved a record price at auction with his “Untitled” from 1990.  Emblazoned with the word Fool in large, capital letters, the work sold for well above the estimate at $7.8 million. 

German artist Gerhard Richter continued to bring in high prices with his “Abstraktes Bild,” from 1994, reaping $15.5 million. Work by abstract landscape painter Nicolas de Staël, conceptual artist Piero Manzoni and Spatialist artist Lucio Fontana also came in above estimate.

Meanwhile, at Sotheby’s on the following day, sales brought in $80 million. Richter’s star continued to shine with six of his artworks totalling nearly $30 million.

A Basquiat, having been found to possess a secret signature in invisible ink shortly before going on the auction block, went for over $6 million.