The first of two sales featuring the art collection of divorced New York billionaires Harry and Linda Macklowe brought a staggering $676.1 million at Sotheby's this week. 

On Monday in New York, 35 works were offered with auction house guarantees, and 21 lots had irrevocable bids. Each lot sold, pushing the haul well above the estimated range of $439.4 million-$618.9 million.

A number of artist records fell, notably for Jackson Pollock, with his black-splattered Number 17 (1951) fetching $61 million, more than double the $25 million estimate. The artist’s previous auction record of $58.4 million was set in 2013 for Number 19 (1948) at Christie’s New York. 

Five active bidders vied for Agnes Martin’s Untitled #44, a subtly-striped white canvas from 1974, which ultimately fell to a phone bidder through Sotheby’s Asia chairman Patti Wong for $17.7 million with premium.

Wong also was on the phone for the winner of the evening's top lot: Mark Rothko's No. 7 (1951), a "tour de force" pink, chartreuse, and orange stacked abstraction that sold for $82.5 million after an 8-minute bidding battle. The price was the second highest for a work by Rothko at auction.

Another highlight was Cy Twombly's Untitled (2007), an enormous canvas punctuated with dripping red flower forms. Pursued past its $40 million high estimate, the painting went for $58.9 million to a phone bidder with Sotheby’s Mexico City office.

Alberto Giacometti's long-nosed bust entitled Le Nez (1947), went for $78.4 million to a bidder on the phone with the Hong Kong office's Yonnie Fu. Justin Sun, the Hong Kong-based CEO of the cryptocurrency platform Tron, later tweeted that he purchased the piece. 

With more to be sold next spring, the Macklowe collection could outpace the highest total for a single-owner collection set by the Rockefeller sale at Christie’s in 2018, which brought $832 million.

The former couple amassed the top-notch collection over five decades. Katya Kazakina writes in Town & Country: "Splitting up the 165-piece collection has been painful for Linda [Macklowe], according to people who know her, but she has had no choice. The mistrustful spouses each chose an art expert to value the holdings, and those valuations varied drastically on many items." To determine market value, the court ruled to send the art to auction.

A second court-ordered auction of the Macklowe's art will be held at Sotheby's in May 2022.