R It wasn't so much a portrait as a means of introduction, kind of like posting your picture on myspace or wherever. In this case, Raphael had been commissioned to paint Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino, for a portrait swap with his future bride-to-be. Lorenzo's uncle, Pope Leo X, arranged his marriage to Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, a cousin of Francois I, King of France, and an important ally of the Vatican against the Holy Roman Empire.

Wedded bliss or not, it was New York dealer Ira Spanierman who scored big when he spotted the portrait at an auction forty years ago and paid $325 for it. Three years later, Renaissance scholars identified the work as a lost de' Medici portrait by Raphael. Last Thursday, it fetched an artist's-record £18.5 million ($37.3 million) at Christie's.

It wasn't the only work to fetch eight figures at the Old Master sales in London last week. Saint Rufina (above) sold for an artist's-record 8.42 million pounds ($17 million) at Sotheby's, becoming one of the top dozen Old Masters to ever sell at auction. (Check out Sotheby's ranking below.)

Maybe I can't get erotic connotations out of my head, but I'm not sure I understand why the plume in her hand is quite so big or the purpose of the vessel she is proffering. Reminds me of Meret Oppenheim's fur-lined teacup and makes me wonder what Freud would think.

But wait…Sotheby's provides an explanation for the seemingly gratuitous symbols: Saint Rufina was the daughter of a humble potter?during a pagan festival, she and her sister, Saint Justa, destroyed an image of Venus after refusing to make offerings to it…unwilling to renounce their faith, the sisters were tortured on a rack with iron hooks and starved and, in the case of Rufina, beheaded.

Yikes. It's a martyr's palm.

TOP OLD MASTER PAINTINGS SOLD AT AUCTION  BY DOLLAR (alternative ranking by British pound in parentheses)

1. (1) SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS
MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS
$76,730,700 (£49,506,650)
SOTHEBY'S LONDON, JULY 2002

2. (5)  RAPHAEL
PORTRAIT OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI
$37,277,500 (£18,500,000)
CHRISTIE'S LONDON, JULY 2007

3. (2) JACOPO PONTORMO
PORTRAIT OF  HALBERDIER
$35,200,000 (£22,278,481)
CHRISTIE'S NEW YORK, MAY 1989

4. (4) CANALETTO
VENICE, THE GRAND CANAL LOOKING NORTH-EAST FROM PALAZZO BALBI
$32,568,600 (£18,600,000)
SOTHEBY'S LONDON, JULY 2005

5. (7) JOHANNES VERMEER
YOUNG WOMAN SEATED AT THE VIRGINALS
$30,006,650 (£16,245,600)
SOTHEBY'S LONDON, JULY 2004

6. (3) REMBRANDT
PORTRAIT OF A LADY, AGED 62
$29,167,755 (£19,803,750)
CHRISTIE'S LONDON, DECEMBER 2000

7. (6) ANDREA MANTEGNA
DESCENT INTO LIMBO
$28,568,000 (£17,666,450)
SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK, JANUARY 2003

8. (8) REMBRANDT
SAINT JAMES THE GREATER
$25,800,000 (£13,656,574)
SOTHEBY'S NEW YORK, JANUARY 2007

9. (9) CANALETTO
THE BUCINTORO AT THE MOLO, VENICE, ON ASCENSION DAY
$19,990,250 (£11,423,000)
CHRISTIE'S LONDON, JULY 2005

10. (11) CANALETTO
THE OLD HORSE GUARDS, LONDON, FROM ST. JAMES PARK
$17,799,230 (£10,100,000)
CHRISTIE'S LONDON, APRIL 1992

11. (12) VELAZQUEZ
SAINT RUFINA
$17,003,348 (£8,420,000)
SOTHEBY'S LONDON, JULY 2007

12. (10) FRANCESCO GUARDI
VEDUTA DELLA GIUDECCA ET DELLA ZATTERE A VENEZZIA
$15,866,500 (£10,112,492)
SOTHEBY'S MONACO, DECEMBER 1989

—Kelly Devine Thomas