SOTHEBY’S reported record second-quarter revenue of $248.3 million (£133 million) as it benefited from increased demand from private collectors in China, India and Russia.

The New York-based auction house said that profit from continuing operations had surged 75 per cent to a record $1.17 a share. Revenue from auctions, private sales and other businesses rose 39 per cent to $248.3 million.

Auction houses and dealers are benefiting from a boom in demand for art even as prices continue to climb. Prices for contemporary art have tripled in the past decade as younger investors look to art as a new asset class. The industry is also benefiting from the appearance of newly rich Chinese, Indian and Russian collectors interested in buying pieces of their heritage.

In June, Ronald Lauder, the cosmetics tycoon, set a new record for the highest figure paid for a painting with his reputed £73 million bid for Gustav Klimt’s portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer.

Sotheby’s sold Dora Maar au chat, Picasso’s 1941 portrait of his mistress, for $95 million in May, setting the record as the second-costliest painting.

Yet Sotheby’s, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has yet to catch up with Christie’s, its main rival. Christie’s, owned by François Pinault, the French billionaire, notched up a record £1.2 billion in global sales in the first half of the year. Sotheby’s recorded just over £1 billion of sales in the same period.

Sotheby’s stunned the art world in June by announcing its acquisition of Noortman Master Paintings, Europe’s leading dealership in Old Master paintings.

Sotheby’s paid Robert Noortman, managing director of the dealer, $56 million in shares. Mr Noortman also joined the advisory board of the auction house.

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