Sotheby's sells Francis Bacon triptych for $84.6 million

Sotheby's sold Francis Bacon's 1981 triptych inspired by Aeschylus' Oresteia for $84.6 million in a five-hour online marathon auction starting at 6:30 AM in Hong Kong and ending at midnight in London. The work was contested by two telephone bidders over ten minutes with increments of $400,000 and $900,000, ultimately won by a collector in New York against a rival from China. The triptych is one of 28 large-format triptychs Bacon painted between 1962 and 1991, and the sixth of its kind to appear at auction. It was previously owned by Norwegian collector Hans Rasmus Astrup, acquired from Marlborough Fine Art Ltd in 1984 and later housed at the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo. In 2013, Astrup donated his collection to the Hans Rasmus Astrup Foundation, which sold the triptych to support its activities and the museum. Bacon's record remains his 2013 sale of Three Studies of Lucian Freud at Christie's New York for $142.4 million.