The Scream beats records at auction... anxiety sells, it seems

Yes, one of three surviving versions of Edvard Munch's benchmark in visual misery has beaten all previous records for sale at open auction.

The work went under the gavel for $119.9 million (Dh440 million)  to an as yet unnamed telephone buyer, after a tense but surprisingly swift 12 minutes on the table at Sotheby's in New York on Wednesday night.

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Interestingly, the profits from the work will not just disappear into the already well-lined pockets of its owner, Norwegian business man Petter Olson, but will go towards funding a new museum, hotel and art centre in Norway.

But I think that one of the strange details of this piece really highlight the journey it has made to this art market accolade. This version of The Scream, painted in 1895, features a poem in its frame handwritten by Munch himself.

I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting -

Suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city.

My friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

Heavy stuff. Munch's inspiring if terrifying vision of an almost apocalyptic sky bearing down on him - a representation of the modern human's isolation and insecurity - seems far removed from the suited hordes that settled in to watch it rack up millions in a glitzy party in New York last night.

Do record breaking sales like this take something away from the work? Does it become synonymous with big sales from now on as - some might argue - The Card Players by Paul Cezanne,

in February, has?

I suppose it all really depends on where this work ends up. If it disappears off into the inner sanctum of a private collector, not to see light of day for a couple of generations, then perhaps yes. If it ends up in a museum (and perhaps a museum just over the Gulf in Qatar, but who are we to speculate?) then the story is a little different.

But I think there's some irony that a work depicting the inner turmoil, the horror and the general sense of unease of modern life - painted while Munch was short of cash and received fairly lukewarm by the Norwegian public - should send a room into rapturous cheers. The auctioneer even announced his love for the mysterious buyer, mid-sale.

Check out

of the work racking up the bids on Wednesday night