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A Claude Monet painting, Le Bassin Aux Nympheas, has fetched a record £40.9m for the artist's work at auction.

The identity of the victorious bidder at Christie's, London, has not been made public. The painting had been expected to fetch £24m.

Painted in 1919 in Giverny in France it has been seen in public just once in the past 80 years.

Monet's 1873 Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil, which sold in May, had held the previous record of £20.9m.

Experts say the art market remains in a "robust" position.

A pair of the Yubari melon, a premium orange-fleshed cantaloupe variety from Hokkaido, sold for 2.5 million yen in this harvest season's first auction held at the Sapporo City Central Wholesale Markets on Tuesday.

The price is a record high, surpassing the 2 million yen a pair fetched last year, according to Yubari's agricultural cooperative. The winning bidder of what was considered the best pair on Tuesday was a businessman dealing in seafood lunchboxes and souvenirs near the marketplace.

A nude photograph of France's first lady, Carla Bruni, has been auctioned for $91,000 (£46,098) - more than 20 times the expected price.
The image was taken by photographer Michel Comte in 1993, when Ms Bruni was a highly sought-after model.
The picture was bought by an anonymous bidder on behalf of a collector, said Christie's auction house in New York, which sold the image.
The office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy has declined to comment.
Christie's said the photograph had been expected to fetch between $3,000 and $4,000.