June 5, 2013 /

The keenly anticipated sale of Important Carpets from the William A. Clark Collection, deaccessioned by the Corcoran Gallery of Art took place today at Sotheby’s New York. The 25-lot auction totalled $44m for the Washington DC museum. The undoubted highlight of the sale was the new world record price for a carpet sold at auction set by lot 12, the beautiful Clark Kerman sickle-leaf, vine scroll and palmette ‘vase-technique’ carpet, which sold for $33,765,000, almost five times high estimate and far outstripping the previous auction record of $9.5m paid for another 17th century Kerman vase carpet at Christie’s in London on 16 April 2010.