A pair of portraits by Francis Bacon and a painting from Cy Twombly’s seminal Blackboard Series led Sotheby’s $242.2-million contemporary art auction on Wednesday, May 11. The Bacon portraits, which have been in the same collection for over forty-five years, netted $35 million, while Twombly’s calligraphic work garnered $36.7 million. The auction followed Sotheby’s lackluster Impressionist and Modern Art Sale, which failed to realize its low estimate of $164.8 million on Monday, May 9.