LONDON.- Portrait of Iris Clert, Manoucher Yektai’s most significant painting, sold for £182,500, setting a new world record for the Iranian master in Bonhams’ A Century of Iraqi Art Part II and Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art sale on 7th October.

The sale broke five world records in total.

Purchased in the late 1990s for less than £200, Portrait of Iris Clert, smashed its pre-sale estimate of £50,000 - 70,000.

“Yektai’s work has been historically undervalued by the art market until now,” said Bonhams Modern and Contemporary Iraqi and Middle Eastern Art specialist, Nima Sagharchi. “The world records set today are clear testament to the rising awareness of Iraqi and Middle Eastern Modern and Contemporary Art. These artists are now getting the recognition they have always deserved.”

Portrait of Iris Clert was Yektai’s response to the ultimate Parisian vanity project. In 1961, avant-garde gallery owner Iris Clert – renowned for her discovery of Yves Klein – held an exhibition in which she invited artists to submit portraits of herself.

In this sale, however, Iris Clert must share some of the limelight.

Mahmoud Moussa’s The Worker Height: 100cm made nearly ten times its estimate of £18,000 - 25,000. It sold for £176,500 and set a new world record for the Egyptian artist.

Banyan Tree also set a world record price of £92,500 for Egyptian master Georges Hanna Sabbagh.

The sale also set records for two Iraqi artists. Cubist Bathhouse sold for £56,250, setting a world record for a work by Hafiz Drubi, while The Goldsmith set a new record price of £35,000 for Faeq Hassan.

The sale followed Bonhams’ A Century of Iraqi Art Part I sale, which on 20th April 2015 set a world record price for any group of Iraqi paintings offered at auction with a sale total of £1.2 million.