La Blanchisseuse is a portrait of a female laundry worker

A painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec has been sold for $22.4m (Ј12.6m) in New York, breaking the world sales record for the artist's work.

His 1886 work La Blanchisseuse shows a female laundry worker gazing out of a window. It beat the 1997 record of $14.5m (Ј8.2m) for one of his works.

Christie's annual autumn art auction also sold Picasso's Sylvette on a Green Armchair for $8m (Ј4.5m).

But Henri Matisse's Marguerites failed to reach its $10m (Ј5.6m) asking price.

A pair of Monet paintings also remained unsold, drawing no bids beyond $3.2m (Ј1.8m) after pre-sale estimates of up to $6m (Ј3.3m).

Intense life

Christie's two-week Impressionist and modern art sale took a total of $160.9m (Ј91m) in its first week.

La Blanchisseuse was its highest sale so far, although it had been expected to fetch up to $25m (Ј14m).

Sold to an anonymous buyer, it beat the record set by Toulouse-Lautrec's 1890 work Danseuse Assise aux bas Roses, which fetched $14.5m (Ј8.2m) eight years ago.

French poster painter Toulouse-Lautrec's life was short but extremely intense.

When, in 1901, he succumbed to the effects of alcoholism, syphilis and wild living, he had known huge professional success and extreme exhibitionism.