Cezanne and Degas lead $126m sale

Cezanne's still life was the sale's most expensive lot

Works by Cezanne and Degas fetched $16m (£11m) each at auction in New York on Wednesday - but a Gaugain went unsold after failing to reach its reserve price.

Sotheby's auction house took a total of $126m (£87m) from the sale, in what was seen as one of the best results for a major art auction in years.

It's just amazing to see the market so strong

David Norman, Sotheby's

Only three of the 55 lots failed to find buyers.

Cezanne's still life Pichet Et Assiette De Poires was the sale's most expensive lot, selling for $16,784,500 (£11.5m).

It was followed by Degas' Au Musee Du Louvre (Miss Cassatt), which sold for $16,509,500 (£11.3m) and the Giacometti's sculpture Grande Tete De Diego, which fetched $13,759,500 (£9.4m).

A record was set for the artist Juan Gris, whose Cubist work Le Pot De Geranium sold for $8,479,500 (£5.8m).

Unsold

The sale's few disappointments included Matisse's Figure Decorative, which sold for $8,259,500 (£5.6m), somewhat lower than the auction house's estimate of $9m (£6.2m).

Le Pot De Geranium set a new record for Juan Gris

One work which failed to sell was Monet's Le Repos Dans Le Jardin, Argenteuil, estimated at up to $4.5m (£3m) and offered for sale by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Also left unsold was the auction's highest-priced painting, Gauguin's Femmes Pres Des Palmiers, an 1891 work from the artist's first Tahiatian trip.

The work failed to reach its lowest pre-sale estimate of $15m (£10m) when bidding stopped at $11.5m (£7.9m).

David Norman, Sotheby's worldwide co-chairman of Impressionist and modern art, said the house was "absolutely thrilled".

"With the markets, interest rates, and the political and world situation so unstable, it's just amazing to see the market so strong," he said.