5. A 1915 landscape by Gustav Klimt surged past its presale estimate of $25 million to reach $40.4 million at Sotheby's on Nov. 2. Stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owner, the work was consigned by the woman's grandson, Georges Jorisch. "Litzlberg am Attersee" depicts verdant hills above the lake of the title in western Austria. Earlier in the year, Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg, Austria, returned the painting to Jorisch. Zurich dealer David Lachenmann bought the work on behalf of a client who he declined to identify.
6. A 1914 townscape by Egon Schiele fetched an artist record 24.7 million pounds ($40 million) at Sotheby's on June 22. Titled "Houses with Laundry (Suburb II)," the work was offered by the Leopold Museum in Vienna to pay for its "Portrait of Wally," Schiele's 1912 portrait of his lover Walburga (Wally) Neuzil at the heart of the world's longest- running art-restitution case. Sotheby's Poltimore bought the work for a client.
7. Andy Warhol's 1963-64 "Self-Portrait," made of four photo-booth-strip images in different shades of blue, sold for $38.4 million at Christie's on May 11.
8. Francis Bacon's 1964 painting "Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud" fetched 23 million pounds ($37 million) at Sotheby's on Feb. 10. The artist sitter, grandson of Sigmund Freud, died in July. The triptych was the star of a 60- lot sale of works that had belonged to the low-key Geneva collector George Kostalitz. The group raised 93.5 million pounds.
9. A 1765 painting of a champion race horse by George Stubbs brought an artist record 22.4 million pounds ($36 million) at Christie's on July 5. Titled "Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a Trainer, a Stable-Lad, and a Jockey," the canvas depicted a horse that had won 27 of the 36 races he entered. It was consigned by the U.K.-based Woolavington Collection and was bought with a single bid by Piers Davies Fine Art of New York.
10. An undocumented Mark Rothko canvas, "Untitled No. 17," fetched $33.7 million at Christie's on May 11, surpassing its high estimate of $22 million. Painted in 1961, it depicted pink and red rectangles on a tangerine-yellow background and hadn't been seen publically since 1965.