A Claude Monet painting sold for €50 million ($56.2 million) at Sotheby’s in Paris on Thursday, setting a record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in France.

The painting, Iris , sparked a 45-minute bidding battle between six collectors before selling to a private buyer in Asia, represented on the phone by Sotheby’s deputy chairman Jen Hua. It had been expected to fetch between €22 million and €30 million.

The sale was part of an auction of works from the collection of Jeanne Schlumberger, whose family made its fortune in the oil services industry. Every lot found a buyer, bringing the evening’s total to €74.4 million ($83.7 million), the highest ever for a fine art auction at Sotheby’s Paris. Nearly three-quarters of the lots sold above their high estimates.

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Monet was responsible for most of the evening’s fireworks. A second painting, Saule pleureur ou L’Arbre de feu , depicting one of the weeping willows in his garden at Giverny, sold for €9.7 million ($10.9 million).…