Les Distractions de Dagobert by Leonora Carrington, $24.5m (£19.3m) at Sotheby’s.
Setting a record for any British-born female artist at auction, a Surrealist painting by Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) drew a lengthy bidding battle at Sotheby’s New York on May 15, taking the artist into a new league commercially.
Carrington, who was born in Lancashire but spent much for her life in Mexico where she became a naturalised citizen, moved to central America during the Second World War.