Picasso's 'Women of Algiers' breaks auction record, selling for $179.3 million

After 11 minutes of bidding from telephone buyers, Pablo Picasso's "Women of Algiers" is now the most expensive painting to sell at auction, fetching $179.3 million Monday.

Offered by Christie's in New York, the painting went for much more than its pre-sale estimate of $140 million, the BBC reports. The previous world record for most expensive painting sold at auction was $142.4 million for Francis Bacon's "Three Studies of Lucien Freud," which sold at Christie's in 2013.

"Women of Algiers" was painted in oil by Picasso in the mid-1950s, and is part of a 15-work series. The record shattering didn't stop with Picasso; minutes after the purchase of "Women of Algiers," Christie's announced that Alberto Giacometti's "Pointing Man" sold for $141.2 million, the most ever paid at auction for a sculpture.

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