Visitors are introduced to Alberto Giacometti's life-size bronze sculpture Pointing Man, left, after viewing the Pablo Picasso oil painting Women of Algiers (Version O), right, during Christie's press preview, in New York on May 11, 2015. [Photo/IC]

2. Pablo Picasso's Women of Algiers (Version O), $179.4 million, May 11

Women of Algiers (Version O) from Pablo Picasso, was sold for nearly $179.4 million in May this year at Christie's auction house, which set a world record as the most expensive auction item.

Women of Algiers, once owned by the American collectors Victor and Sally Ganz, was inspired by Picasso's fascination with the 19th-century French artist Eugene Delacroix. It is part of a 15-work series Picasso created in 1954-55 designated with the letters A through O. It has appeared in several major museum retrospectives of the artist.

The most expensive artwork sold at auction had been Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucian Freud, which Christie's sold for $142.4 million in 2013.