Colin Gleadell adds some details to this history of this sale:
In 1998, the installation, which has been interpreted as a metaphor for drawn out death, sold to the Dallas collector, Howard Rachofsky, for £106,000. Last week he sold it at Christie’s where the Crystal Bridges Museum for American Art in Arkansas, founded and supported by billionaire Alice Walton, paid a record $7.7million (£5.1 million) for it, representing a 4,691 per cent increase or an average 25.6 per cent gain each year since he bought it.
Market News: Sotheby’s bares all (Telegraph)