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Posted Jun 20, 2012, 4:15 pm

Jennifer Mattson Global Post

A painting by the Surrealist Spanish artist Joan Miro sold for a record $36.9 million at a Sotheby's auction in London.

The Los Angeles Times reported the sale of Miro's "Peinture (Etoile Bleue)" was part of an auction of Impressionist and modernist paintings by well-known artists such as Pissarro and Kandinsky, which brought in a reported $117.7 million.

Although the painting set a world auction record, the New York Times called the auction "the thinnest evening sale of Impressionist and modern art held at Sotheby’s in a very long time" with 15 painting not even garnering a single bid.

According to Sotheby's, "Peinture (Etoile Bleue)" dates back to 1927 and was purchased by its most recent owner in a Paris sale in 2007.

It is part of Miró’s “dream paintings” series and was inspired by a circus act performed at the Cirque Medrano in Paris throughout the 1920s, the New York Times wrote.

Sculptor Henry Moore's  "Mother and Child with Apple," which brought in approximately $5.8 million, also sold on Tuesday, the L.A. Times reported.