ABOVE: Detail from Roy Lichtenstein’s In the Car (1963), which sold for $16.25 million on Tuesday, the highest price ever paid for a Lichtenstein work.

It was a landmark sale at Christie’s on Tuesday, when a batch of 70 post-war artworks were auctioned for $157.6 million altogether, a record total sale for art of this type. Mark Rothko’s Homage to Matisse went for more than $22 million clams, a new high-water mark for Rothko prices. Roy Lichtenstein’s famous In the Car was sold for $16.25 million, an enormous jump from previous highest price paid for a Lichtenstein work, $7.15 million just three years ago.

The International Herald Tribune says that the stratospheric prices are “the beginning of a new era” for this artistic period, and that it indicates a new confidence on the part of collectors in the art of the postwar period and into the 60s. Contemporary works by still-living artists also did well, such as Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy), which also set a career high selling price of $1.28 million. So is this a new era or yet another puff into the art-market bubble?

LINK: International Herald Tribune > Record $22.4 million paid for a Rothko