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His 1979 painting, The Musicians, was bought by a U.S. art dealer at Christie's sale of Latin American art.

The previous record sale for a Botero, born in 1932 and known for his smooth, inflated shapes, was $1.5 million in 1992 for The House of the Arias Twins.

"We were delighted with the result of Botero's The Musicians, which at $2,032,000 set a new world auction record for the artist and a record for a living Latin American artist," Virgilio Garza, head of the Latin American art department at Christie's, said in a statement.

The Musicians features nine rounded musicians—in Botero's puffed-up trademark style—and had been used to illustrate his first catalog shown in the United States, 27 years ago.

The second-highest sale at the auction was for a gouache, Untitled, by Wilfredo Lam, at $1.3 million, setting a world record for the late Cuba-born French painter.

The buyers at the sale were 40 percent American, 26 percent Latin American, 4 percent European, 2 percent Asian and 28 percent others, Christie's said.

Copyright 2006 Agence France-Presse