Of the two Warhol camouflage paintings from the same year at tonight’s sale, the larger, brighter canvas fetched the higher price. Begun in the early 1980s as an experiment in the studio, the camouflage works became a pastiche of both militarism and abstraction, and the red and yellow blotches that achieved the second-highest price of the evening are a strong example from the series. So strong, in fact, that it pushed past its high estimate and also sold to a phone bidder.

3. David Hammons, Untitled (2004), sold for $1,496,000 (est. $1.5-$2 million)

This was the lot that left an artist’s previous auction record most thoroughly in the dust. Hammons’s work is a trophy gazelle head of the sort mounted above hunting lodge fireplaces. The wall installation is composed from African masks lashed together with wire and straw. Hoping that buyers would go for the work’s strong mix of form and social critique, Phillips set the estimate well above Hammons’s previous record of $409,500—a figure kept low by the infrequency with which his installation work turns up at auction. But with only one active bidder, de Pury only managed to eek the price up to a few thousand dollars shy of the low estimate.

4. John Chamberlain, Untitled (1962), sold for $1,384,000 (est. $700,000-$900,000)

One of John Chamberlain’s iconic crumpled metal sculptures may have benefited from its prominent placement next to Simon de Pury’s podium. Several bidders in the room drove up the price of the brown and turquoise painted steel construction, which came from a New York collection, past the high estimate—and then past the artist’s previous auction record of just over $1 million. But the work eventually sold to a bidder on the telephone.

5. Gerhard Richter, Drei Grau übereinander (Three greys one upon the other) (1966/84), sold for $1,384,000 (est. $1.2-1.8 million)

A private collection in Cologne gave up the Gerhard Richter that rounded out the top five. A minimal series of gradient shades of gray on a white canvas, the work was among the protean artist’s first monochrome paintings in 1966. It drew several telephone bidders, who ultimately pushed the price into the lot’s estimate range. It sold for just above the $1.2 million low.