The untitled oil and crayon-on-canvas from 1968, one of the artist`s seminal blackboard works meant to resemble chalk on blackboard, was sold to an anonymous client and exceeded Sotheby`s` estimate of a sale price in excess of $60 million.

The Twombly, last auctioned in 1990 when it fetched $3.9 million, benefited a foundation with proceeds earmarked for a new facility at a Los Angeles temple.

The auction of 54 works took in a total of $295.85 million, drawing whoops and cheers from both clients and Sotheby`s staff as the hammer fell on the last lot, following two weeks of steady, if not exactly blockbuster results.

Christie`s achieved the second-highest price in art auction history on Monday when it sold Modigliani`s "Nu couche" for $170.4 million.

Auction officials have stressed that the sales were chiefly assembled over the summer when roiling world stock markets unnerved high-end collectors, who typically attempt to cash in on a boom such as the one which has prevailed for some five years.

Warhol`s 1972 "Mao," a large-scale work depicting Chinese leader Mao Zedong reportedly being sold by hedge fund manager Steve Cohen, beat its $40 million estimate, fetching $47.5 million including commission to nab the evening`s second-highest price.

Other highlights included an untitled 1987 work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which was sold by the artist`s estate and soared to $8.3 million, some four time the pre-sale estimate.

Francis Bacon`s "Portrait" fetched $15.7 million, in the midst of its estimate range, while Jackson Pollock`s "Number 17" sold for $22.9 million, just meeting the low estimate.

The sale took Sotheby`s over the $1 billion mark for its series of key autumn auctions in the Impressionist, modern, contemporary and post-war art categories.

The autumn auctions wrap up on Thursday with Christie`s` sale of Impressionist and modern art.

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