The sale of Farsi’s art collections at the auction totaled SR25.2 million, according to sources close to Farsi. The “Whirling Dervishes,”1929, a spectacular early work by Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said sold for $2,546,500 against a pre-sale estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. The work surpassed the recently established world auction record for the artist by $100,000.

Farsi’s private collection is recognized as the most comprehensive group of modern Egyptian art in private hands. The collection included paintings of Saudis as well as Gulf and Arab artists. The final part of the Farsi collection to come to auction, a group of 40 works by Egyptian artists, will be offered at Christie’s in Paris on Nov. 9. The Dubai auction saw the sale of all of the 30 works from the Farsi collection and a huge increase in international interest in Egyptian art. “We were delighted to see Mahmoud Said’s ‘Whirling Dervishes’ sell for a world record $2,546,500,” said Jussi Pylkkänen, president of Christie’s Middle East and Europe.

Michael Jeha, managing director of Christie’s in the Middle East, said: “In one year Christie’s Dubai achieved a 117 percent increase in the sale of Contemporary Middle Eastern art. Tonight, pictures for this sale were consigned from 15 different countries and, as a measure of the international interest in Middle Eastern art, they have been dispersed among buyers from 18 different countries,” he said.