Shock as Christie’s fails to sell Bacon

A Francis Bacon self-portrait (pictured) failed to sell at auction at Christie's in New York last night. As discussed on The First Post today, the art market appears to have gone into meltdown since the onset of the global financial crisis.

The artist's 1964 Study for Self Portrait had been expected to fetch $40m, but when bidding stalled at $27m the auction house dramatically halted the proceedings to a chorus of gasps from a stunned audience.

One Bacon collector who wasn't bidding last night was Roman Abramovich. In May, the Russian oligarch and Chelsea Football Club owner, who has been introduced to contemporary art by his girlfriend Dasha Zhukova, paid £43m for Bacon's Triptych (1976).

At the same time, he snapped up Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping for £17m. However, since then, according to reports, he has had £12bn wiped off his fortune by the Russian stockmarket crash.