Old Masters set auction records

Florentine painter Filippo Lippi’s “Penitent Magdalen,” painted in the 15th century, took a record $2.3 million at a Christie’s International auction in New York this week. The work was part of a $25.9-million sale of Old Master paintings.

Six records were set with the top 10 lots, including for artists Francesco Guardi and Agnolo Gaddi, the London-based auction house said in a statement. About three-quarters of the works offered were sold, it said.

Christie’s top sale was an Antonio Canaletto landscape, “The Bacino di San Marco,” which went for $5.3 million to an unnamed U.S. collector.

The Lippi painting, which had carried a top estimate of $1.2 million, was one of 11 works being sold by the heirs of Denys Sutton, a Financial Times columnist who edited Apollo art magazine for about 25 years. Separately, Christie’s said that Paris’ Louvre museum bought artist Nicolas Chaperon’s “Venus, Mercury and Cupid.”