Sotheby's sale was an historic one, a triumph for the house, and yet another sign that the post-War and contemporary art market continues its ascent to ever more stratospheric heights.
 
Totaling $114.5 million, it was the house's best sale ever in the category, and its top lot, the 1965 David Smith sculpture Cubi XXVIII, not only more than quadrupled the artist's previous auction record, but set a record for a contemporary work of art at auction.
 
In all, six artist records were set, including ones for Cy Twombly and Louise Bourgeois. Bidding was fierce on the phones and in the room, and 27 of the 54 lots sold for over $1 million.
 
There was, however, a hiccup early in the sale when two works by Richard Prince, currently a darling of the market, failed to sell. They were a well-known photograph from his series of Marlboro cowboys and a glamorous photograph of a woman, Untitled (Fashion). Another, the inkjet print and acrylic on canvas Mountain Nurse, made just two years ago, eked by to sell within estimate at $744,000; the record for a Prince at auction is $1,248,000.

The lackluster performance of the Prince works seemed to call into question the depth of the market for his art. Could it indeed be a shallower one than had been thought, given the recent hype—and even a lesson in how the market itself can buoy up an artist's work somewhat artificially, over a relatively short period? Time will tell.
 
Top Five Prices
 
Lot 23—David Smith, Cubi XXVIII, $23,816,000 ($8-12 million)
 
This extremely rare, monumental steel sculpture, made in 1965, the year Smith died, was parked in the front of the room, its polished-steel surface gleaming for all to covet. Its highly reflective surface is the result of Smith's determined work with a grinding tool.
 
Most of these "Cubi" pieces—the artist made 28 of them—are in museums. This one comes from the Sid W. Richardson Foundation in Fort Worth, Texas, though it has been on loan to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for over 20 years.
 
A fierce battle was waged on the phones, but at around the $17 million point, it switched to two powerful dealers in the room, Dominique Levy of L+M Arts and Larry Gagosian, who were seated a mere three chairs apart. Both were tenacious bidders, but Gagosian won it.
 
Its selling price bested those of both the Rothko painting that went for $22.4 million at Tuesday night's sale at Christies, and the Toulouse-Lautrec painting, La Blanchisseuse, sold last week in the Impressionist & Modern sales, to become the most expensive work of the season—and to reach the highest price ever paid for contemporary art at auction.
 
It certainly went far beyond the record for Smith, which was set just the other night at Christie's when his 1945 sculputre Jurassic Bird sold for $4,944,000. Smith's last Cubi work, Cubi V, came on the block at Sotheby's in 1994 and sold for $4.07 million.
 
Lot 31—Andy Warhol, Jackie Frieze, $9,200,000 ($8-10 million)
 
The image of Jackie Kennedy's pretty, veiled visage is among Warhol's most iconic, and this work of 1964, a lineup of 13 of them, in blue and grey highlighted by other colors, is one of only two such friezes Warhol made. And now they are both off the market—the other, an eight-canvas work in gold and silver, being a promised gift to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
 
This work’s consignor bought it around a year after it was made from British businessman and art collector E.J. Power. It sold to a bidder on the telephone.
 
Warhol's superstar women—Marilyn, Liz and Jackie—are among his most recognizable subjects, and they tend to do well on the market. Significantly, the piece went for more than four times the previous record for a Jackie painting, the $1,879,500 achieved by Four Jackies (in 4 parts) at Sotheby's in 2002. The record price for a Warhol at auction is the astronomical $17,327,500 paid for his 1964 Orange Marilyn at Sotheby's in 1998.
 
Lot 29—Cy Twombly, Untitled (New York City), $8,696,000 ($8-10 million)
 
Made with house paint and wax crayon, this 1968 painting was part of a series of grey canvases Twombly executed in New York at that time, having taken a break from the more exuberant color he'd been using and switched to an emphasis on line. Won by a telephone bidder, the work soared past Twombly's previous record of $5,619,500 for a 1970 painting sold at Sotheby's in 2002.
 
Lot 21—Cy Twombly, Untitled (Rome), $7,968,000 ($6-8 million)
 
Also surpassing Twombly's previous record was this work, which went to dealer Larry Gagosian. Made in Rome in 1961, four years after Twombly moved there, it predates and provides an energetic contrast to the sale's other slate-grey Twombly. It is dominated by lively pinks and reds, touched by blues and whites. The move to Italy brought out an exuberant sense of color, and the summer when he executed it is considered to be a peak of his early career. Its consignor, an unnamed European collector, bought it from the artist a year after it was painted.
 
Lot 20—Andy Warhol, Flowers, $6,736,000 ($4-6 million)
 
Avid collector and Warhol fan Jose Mugrabi was a bidder on this well-known image of electric-blue and green flowers that eventually sold to the phone. The series of flowers was popular in its time—just after Warhol made this painting in 1964, he sold it at his first solo exhibition with Leo Castelli Gallery, where it was among three flower canvases in this 82-inch format.

Warhol and his factory made flower paintings in a number of sizes in 1964 and, though the use of flower imagery is said to have been suggested to the artist by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Henry Geldzahler, as in much of Warhol's work, the precise image he used came from a magazine. Specifically, it was a picture of hibiscus blossoms in the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography. Though this painting sold well, it didn't quite achieve the world record for a flower painting at auction, the $8,476,000 paid for a much larger work at Christie's in 2001.
 
Hottest Lot
 
Lot 23—David Smith, Cubi XXVIII, $23,816,000 ($8-12 million)

At a certain point it was hard to tell what was more impressive, the giant masterpiece sitting at the front of the auction room, which has taken on something of an elegiac glow, having been made shortly before Smith's death in a road accident, or the heated battle between the two determined dealers facing it.

It's highly unlikely that one of these works will come up again at auction any time soon, and the bidders knew it. Larry Gagosian, who last year did a major exhibition of Smith's work in his Chelsea gallery, exhibited his usual shark-like concentration, winning it for a record price. Yet somehow the spectacle in the room was defied by the magnificent sculpture which, steely as Gagosian, is polished to a high shine, managing to be at once massive and graceful.

Strangely for such a highly coveted prize, it is a rather self-effacing piece. Smith has said he polished it with such vigor so that it would "take on the dull blue, or the color of the sky in the late afternoon sun," and he arguably intended the sculpture to be less a thing to be looked at per se, than as a kind of frame through which to view a landscape.
 
Quotes from the Crowd
 
Young Chelsea gallerist Amalia Dayan, who was one of the bidders on the Alexander Calder mobile, Brass in the Sky, declared it "a very strong sale. The only surprise is that the two Richard Princes didn't sell."
 
"It's not a question of whether it's a great sale or not a great sale, it's a question of whether you can get a great artwork," mused Miami collector Martin Z. Margulies, who parted with $1.1 million to leave the sale as proud owner of Andy Warhol's classic 1964 Set of Five Boxes: Brillo Soap Pads; Campbell's Tomato Juice; Del Monte Peach Halves; Heinz Tomato Ketchup; Kellogg's Corn Flakes.
 
Robert Pincus Witten of L+M Arts looked on as his colleague Dominique Levy attempted to win the sale's prize lot, David Smith's sculpture Cubi XXVIII; she lost the piece to fellow dealer Larry Gagosian after a tense bidding war. "It's a strong market for exceptional works," Pincus Witten pointed out. "The Smith was a unique opportunity and a moment in art history, watching these two extraordinarily savvy dealers battle for it."