Christie's Raises Over $20 Million at Fourth Dubai Sale

DUBAI—Christie's raised over $20 million at its fourth auction in Dubai, held last night, Bloomberg reports. The majority of the works were done by Arab and Iranian artists, with six works by Iranian artists dominating seven of the top lots.

Iranian artist Parviz Tanavaoli's The Wall (Oh Persepolis), a nearly 6-foot-high bronze sculpture covered in hieroglyphics, broke the auction record for a Middle Eastern artist, going for $2.84 million. Tchaar-Bagh, an oil-and-acrylic calligraphic work by Charles Hossein Zenderoudi, went for $1.6 million, setting the new record for a modern Middle Eastern painting. The most expensive Arab work was Meditations on Three Themes from Sura Ya' Sin by Ahmed Moustafa, which sold for $421,000 against a high estimate of $400,000.

Buyers from the Middle East and Iran accounted for 77 percent of the total sales; 84 percent of the lots sold.