Christie’s at Rockefeller Center held the Impressionist and modern sale setting new records for two cornerstones of modern art—Claude Monet and Wassily Kandinsky, whose high marks now stand at $81.4 million and $23.3 million. The record-shattering Monet, Meule (1891), 28-by-36-inch painting of a blazing horizon , was the top lot of the evening and sold after more than 10 minutes of bidding.

Kandinsky was less of a surprise. Painted late in the artist’s career, in 1935, the piece, titled Rigide et courbé, had been estimated to make between $18 million and $25 million. The work had not been included in a museum exhibition since 1949, and had been held by the same family since acquiring it at Sotheby’s in London in 1964, back when Lyndon B. Johnson was president.