An 18th-century silver soup dish once owned by the French royal family sold for a record $10.2 million, and at a separate auction two Claude Monet paintings sold for $26.4 million.
The 30-pound silver tureen, sold Wednesday at Sotheby's, was made in 1733 by Thomas Germain, a goldsmith and sculptor to French King Louis XV.The price was more than triple the previous record for a single piece of silver - $3.3 million in December 1993 for a chandelier, said Kevin Tierney, director of Sotheby's silver department.
At a Christie's auction, also Wednesday, two Monet garden paintings sold for $13,202,500 each.
"The Artist's Garden at Vetheuil," from 1881, shows a garden of sunflowers divided by a stone staircase leading to a deep blue sky, and "Nympheas" is a shimmering waterlily painting from 1905.
Each was from the private collection of philanthropist Jane Engelhard. The buyers weren't identified.