The three-paneled artwork entitled "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" sold for $142.4 million at an auction in New York on Tuesday.

"The work was sold for $142,405,000, after six minutes of fierce bidding in the room and on the phone," Christie's said in a statement.

It was the first time the 1969 triptych, by Britain's 20th century figurative artist Francis Bacon, had been offered at auction. It had carried a pre-sale estimate of about $85 million.

The buyer of the artwork has not been disclosed.

The figure easily eclipses the previous record set by Edvard Munch's "The Scream." It sold for $119.9 million in May last year at Sotheby's.

ccp/ch (AFP, Reuters)