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After the highly successful sale of art and objects from Damien Hirst's London restaurant, the Pharmacy, at Sotheby's in London last month, it was interesting to see how his works would fare. Mr. Mugrabi was selling one of the Mr. Hirst's classic dot paintings, "Amodiaquin'' (1993), estimated at $500,000 to $700,000. Many collectors who felt they had perhaps missed out at the Pharmacy sale were obviously even more set on shopping last night. The painting sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for $848,000, a record for a painting by the artist.
One of the evening's biggest casualties was when Gerhard Richter's "Three Sisters,'' a 1965 photo-based painting failed to sell. Despite its pristine provenance - the seller was Lew Manilow, the Chicago collector - there wasn't a single bid.
While Mr. Richter's photo-based painting went unsold, some photographs sold for particularly high prices, perhaps given the success of Phillips, de Pury & Company's sale of contemporary photographs put together by Baroness Marion Lambert, a well-known collector. A 1980 photograph by Richard Prince, "Untitled (Three Women Looking in the Same Direction),'' sold to an unidentified collector for $736,000, more than twice its $350,000 high estimate and a record for a photograph by Mr. Prince.