Sotheby's opened its three-day London sales week on October 14 with the Modern British & Irish Art Evening Auction, which totaled £8.9 million ($11.77 million) — meeting its pre-sale estimate in a sale that saw 71 percent of lots change hands above their low estimates. The standout lot was a record-breaking painting by Paul Henry. The Potato Harvest realized £883,200 ($1.17 million), a new auction benchmark for the Irish artist and roughly 34 percent above his previous record, with the hammer falling some $302,500 over the old mark. Works by Magdalene Odundo also performed strongly, landing comfortably above their low estimates. Sculpture held up well through the evening. Barbara Hepworth's Shaft and Circle (1972) sold for £881,000 ($1.16 million) and her white alabaster Small Form (Amulet) (1960) — the sale's lead lot, estimated at £600,000–800,000 — made £768,000 ($1.02 million). Frank Auerbach's Figure on a Bed (1966) brought £499,200 ($660,000), while Leon Kossoff's Head Leaning on Hand (1959) doubled its low estimate to reach £270,800. Samuel John Peploe's Pink Roses (1920) sold for $203,100, about 27 percent above its low estimate. The evening kicks off a busy run at Sotheby's London: the Contemporary Evening Auction follows on October 15, with collections including Georg Baselitz, Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko, and a special sale of David Hockney's iPad flower drawings is set for October 16. For the Modern British & Irish field, tonight's result — solid, estimate-meeting, and punctuated by a genuine record — gives the house a steady start to Frieze Week.