In a record-breaking art auction, Pablo Picasso's "Les femmes d'Alger (Version O)" was sold for $179.4 million with fees last Monday night in New York. The bid belonged to an anonymous buyer.

The piece was auctioned off at Christie's, where it was previously sold in 1997 for $31.9 million. American collectors Victor and Sally Ganz originally owned the entire Picasso series, which was bought directly from Daniel Kahnweiler, the artist's trusted dealer.

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The New York Times revealed through well-sourced information that the unnamed seller was a Saudi Arabian collector who had purchased the piece at an auction in 1997 and had kept it at one of his London homes.

Francis Bacon's "Three Studies of Lucian Freud," sold to Elaine Wynn for $142.4 million in 2013, used to hold the record for the highest art auction bid.

Christie's auction, entitled "Looking Forward to the Past," described "Les femmes d'Alger (Version O)" as a vibrantly hued painting that marks the last in Picasso's 1954 to 1955 series. Picasso took inspiration from the great French master painter Eugene Delacroix. In the process, he created an entirely new style of painting.

This grand tribute to Picasso's work is not the only hit in Christie's art auction, though. Just an hour after "Les femmes d'Alger (Version O)" was sold, Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti's bronze sculpture "L'homme au doigt (Pointing Man)" was auctioned off at $141.3 million with fees, also setting its own record. The artist previously set the record in 2010 with the sale of  "Walking Man I" for  $104.3 million.

Some of the auction's other highlights include Claude Monet's "The Houses of Parliament" as well as Mark Rothko's "No. 36 (Black Stripe)," a piece which has never before appeared in any auction. The latter was sold for $40.5 million.

TagsPablo Picasso, world record, art, painting, Les femmes d’Algers