Art & Antiques: Sotheby's €500m sales break records 

The Lewis Collection and Modern and Contemporary Art auctions generate the highest total for a season in Europe

Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby's Europe, conducting the sale of the Lewis Collection.

Cool art set temperatures soaring further in the middle of a scorching London heatwave. All sorts of records were broken at Sotheby’s night-to-remember sales, courtesy of the Lewis Collection and Modern and Contemporary Art Auctions.

Four auctions realised £420,488,006 (€487,177,483), the highest total for any season of sales ever staged in Europe. Sotheby’s sales were led by Masterpieces from the Lewis Collection, where 25 paintings made £296 million (€342.95 million).