kolkata in a crowded saleroom at sothebys london the art world witnessed a historic moment on wednesday december 5 night when raphaels head of a young apostle circa 151920 dramatically set a new record at auction for the artist when it achieved 297 million478 million366 million following an intense 17minute battle between four bidders both in the auction room and on the phones the hammer came down on the winning bid which was cast on the telephone the room erupted in a round of applause as the drawing which came to sale from one of the greatest old master drawings collections in the world the devonshire collection at chatsworth achieved a price almost three times that of its presale low estimate of 1015 million gregory rubinstein worldwide head of old master drawings at sothebys said in an email statement if you are lucky at some point in your career a work like this comes along a number of the worlds greatest collectors stepped up tonight in recognition of the genius of raphael and the extraordinary beauty of this drawing with its exceptional provenance the exquisite raphael fetched a record price in terms of british currency the previous record price of 292 million was established for raphaels head of a muse in london in december 2009 this converted to 47941095 at that time head of a young apostle was the headline work at wednesday nights evening sale of old master british paintings including three renaissance masterworks from chatsworth which achieved 580615009351385271514547 estimated at 356529 million in addition to the record achieved for raphaels drawing seven further records were achieved in wednesdays nights sale including jan havicksz steen the sale was 745 sold by lot and 868 by value with nine works selling for more than 1 million and 11 works selling for over 1 million of the lots sold half achieved prices over their presale high estimate alex bell sothebys cochairman old master paintings worldwide said tonights sale was a great way to end what has been a fantastic year for sothebys from the recordbreaking sale of the scream to tonights landmark sale of the exceptional raphael drawing from the devonshire collection while that of course was the undoubted highlight of the evening the rest of the sale also demonstrated depth and strength in this market which has benefitted in recent years from an influx of buyers from new geographic areas and collectors who have previously been active in other fields