A Picasso-packed Sotheby's sale with 44 paintings, drawings and sculptures brought in $170 million for Impressionist and modern art on Tuesday evening in New York. Hefty pre-sale estimates and choosy bidders kept the sale subdued while it fell soundly within the overall pre-sale estimate ($158.9/229.7 million).

The top lot, Picasso's colorful, cartoonish "Women Reading," went for $21.3 million, which was more than 20% below its low estimate. The buyer was a Chinese man in the salesroom.

Notable sales included a rare-to-market Paul Gauguin sculpture of a Tahitian woman that fetched $11.2 million, above its $10 million low estimate and an auction record for his sculpture.

A figural Surrealist work “Les Cariatides,” painted in 1946 by Paul Delvaux, insitigated a bidding battle up to $9 million, a record-breaking price for the artist and well over its $5 million high estimate.

A vibrant, Expressionist work by Alexej von Jawlensky, titled Frau mit grünem Fächer (Woman with a green fan) achieved $11,282,500, just under its high estimate of $12 million.

Fifteen of the sale's 59 lots failed to sell. "The quality was up and down in this sale, so that's the kind of bidding we saw," art adviser Alex Brotmann told the Wall Street Journal.