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" Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but they&amp;#039;re sold for millions. At least that was the case last night at Christie&amp;#039;s salesroom in New York City, where $691,583,000 worth of paintings were auctioned off\u2014the highest total in art market history. Another recording-breaking moment occurred after almost 10 intense minutes among seven bidders over Francis Bacon&amp;#039;s Three Studies of Lucian Freud. The 1969 triptych ultimately sold for a whopping $142.4 million, the most money ever paid for a work of art at an auction. The painting, which shows Bacon&amp;#039;s friend and fellow painter, Lucian Freud, sitting on a wooden chair, is believed to have been purchased by dealer William Acquavella, who bought it on behalf of an unnamed client. The artwork shattered the expected selling price of $85 million as well as the previous record set by Edvard Munch&amp;#039;s The Scream, which sold for $119.9 million in May 2012.  The hefty price tag was well justified according to the head of Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie&amp;#039;s Europe, who called the work &amp;quot;a true masterpiece and one of the greatest paintings to come up for auction in a current generation.&amp;quot; Ten other auction records were broken as 16 pieces passed the $10 million mark, 11 for over $20 million and three for over $50 million. One of the three was Jeff Koon&amp;#039;s Balloon Dog, which went for $58.4 million, the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist. A total of 69 pieces were available for bidding, and only six remain unsold.  If you had unlimited funds, would you spend that much on artwork? Comment below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/news/a48162/francis-bacon-painting-sells-for-record-breaking-price/>