On the strength of a single J.M.W. Turner landscape that sold for a staggering £29,721,250 ($44.9 million) in London tonight, Sotheby’s vanquished its arch rival Christie’s in this week’s Old Master evening auctions. The house brought in a haul of £53,484,350 ($81.3 million), easily besting the £50.8 million high estimate it had placed on the sale. In comparison, Christie’s brought in £42.3 million ($64.3 million) yesterday during a sale that witnessed eight new artist records.

Sotheby’s positioned the Turner landscape, Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino at the conclusion of the auction, forcing watchers to wait nervously for the lot to be offered. It was worth the wait: the work set a new record for the artist at auction when it was snapped up by the J. Paul Getty Museum. Given demand for choice works by the English Romantic painter and this specific work’s remarkable provenance (it was once in the collection of British Prime Minister Archibald Primrose), some insiders argued that the work’s £12–18 million estimate was a bit modest, and they turned out to be right. It was the second-most-expensive work sold in London this auction season. (Picasso's Blue Period Portrait d’ Angel Fernandez de Soto earned first place in that category, having sold for £34,761,250 ($51,585,695) at Christie's last month.)

However, another Turner painting, Venice from Fusilia, which had been placed two lots before the Roman scene, performed just as expected, making £825,250 ($1.25 million) on a £700,000 to £1 million estimate. Work by another English Romantic, John Constable, a contemporary of Turner, also had a strong day, with one of Constable's cloud studies hammering for £241,500 ($367,000) with premium, almost directly at the center of its £200–300,000 estimate.

Other lots in the sale failed to garner even one-tenth the price of the Turner. Second-place honors were shared by a Pieter Brueghel the Younger scene and a portrait by Jan Lievens, with each work selling for £2,505,250 ($3.81 million). Brueghel’s oil on oak panel work, The Kermesse of Saint George with the Dance Around the Maypole Tree, one of eight or nine identically-sized versions that the artist painted of a rustic country festival scene, neared the top end of its £2.2–2.6 million estimate, while the cost of the Lievens, in contrast, fell squarely in the center of the work's expansive £2–3 million estimate.

In a remarkable coincidence, two Brueghel brothers shared the fifth place spot for separate paintings, with each earning £1,609,250 ($2.45 million). Here, Jan Brueghel the Elders village landscape was the more surprising performer, slipping past its £1.2 million high estimate by more than £400,000, while the Brueghel the Younger’s bawdier scene, of an outdoor wedding feast, beat its £1.3 million high estimate by just more than £300,000. The feast in question is among the artist’s most iconic scenes, represented in at least 60 separate paintings.

After mixed results at sales of Impressionist, Modern, postwar, and contemporary art in London over the past two weeks, the banner numbers at Old Master sales this week should provide some welcome relief for both major auction houses as the quieter summer season begins.