Jeff Koons beats David Hockney record for biggest sale by living artist

Koons' previous record was beaten by Hockney last year, when Portrait of an Artist sold for just over $90m

Jeff Koons has beaten a record set by British artist David Hockney for the most expensive work sold by a living artist.

The US pop artist’s Rabbit sculpture, which is one of his best-known pieces, sold for $91.1m (£71m) at auction by Christie’s in New York – more than $20m over its estimated price.

On its website Christie's described the piece, a steel cast of an inflatable created in 1986, as “cute, sinister, cartoonish, imposing, vacuous, sexy, chilling, dazzling and iconic”.

According to the New York Times, Robert E Mnuchin, an art dealer and the father of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, was the winning bidder.

Koons previously held the record price for a living artist's work for his piece Balloon Dog (Orange), but was overtaken by Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which sold for just over $90m (£70m) last year – also at Christie’s.

The sale took place in the same week as a painting from Claude Monet’s Haystacks series sold for more than $110.7m, which marked a record for the French artist.