Competitive bidding via telephone drove the record-breaking price far higher than the $140m estimated for the piece to fetch; details of the successful bidder have not been disclosed. The final sum secured, $179.4m, includes Christie’s 12 percent commission rate.

The modern masterpiece is a cubist interpretation of nude courtesans, which was inspired by the 1834 work of Eugene Delacroix, Women of Algiers in their Apartment. Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘‘O’’) is one in a series of fifteen pieces based upon Delacroix’s painting that were created by Picasso between 1954-1955, with “Version O,” arguably the greatest, being the last in the sequence.

The modern masterpiece is a cubist interpretation of nude courtesans

The sale beats the previous record of $142.4m that had been held since November 2013 by Francis Bacon’s triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which was also sold by Christie’s.

Experts believe that the exponential rise in the valuation of artwork can be attributed to their mounting investment potential, as illustrated by this piece, which was last sold in 1997 for $31.9m, thereby increasing in value by 82 percent over less than two decades. An influx of Asian buyers is also causing this upsurge in prices, as paintings are increasingly perceived as safe investments in volatile financial markets.

“I don’t really see an end to it, unless interest rates drop sharply, which I don’t see happening in the near future,” Manhattan art dealer Richard Feigen told Deutsche Welle‎.

Of the 35 lots on auction on Monday, 34 were sold by Christie’s for a total of $706m, including Man Pointing, a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti that set its own record for $141.3m. Made in in 1947, the bronze life-size figure beat the previous record for a sculpture sold at auction by $37.3m, which was held since 2010 by the same artist for his piece, Walking Man.