A version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” one of the most recognizable images in art history, sold at Sotheby’s on Wednesday night for $119.9 million, the most ever paid for an artwork at auction. It easily surpassed recent records like the $104.3 million spent on the Giacometti bronze “Walking Man I” at Sotheby’s in London in 2010; the $106.5 million paid for Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” at Christie’s in New York a few months later; and the $104.1 million spent at Sotheby’s New York in 2004 on “Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice),” also by Picasso.


Five bidders competed for “The Scream,” which Sotheby’s had estimated would bring $80 million and was sold to a telephone bidder.


Munch made four versions of the work, three of which are now in Norwegian museums; the one that sold on Wednesday, a pastel on board from 1895, was the only one still in private hands. It was sold by Petter Olsen, a Norwegian businessman and shipping heir whose father was a friend, neighbor and patron of the artist.


“The Scream” has been reproduced endlessly in popular culture in recent decades, making it nearly as famous as the Mona Lisa, and has also been a target for theft. Versions have been stolen twice, first in 1994, when two thieves entered the National Gallery of Norway in Oslo and fled with a “Scream” from 1893, and then in 2004, when gunmen stole the 1910 version from the Munch Museum, also in Oslo. (In both cases the works were recovered.)


In addition to the Munch, the star attraction, the sale featured works from the estate of Theodore J. Fortsmann, the Manhattan financier, who died in November. Top among his collection was Picasso’s “Femme Assise Dans un Fauteuil,” a 1941 portrait of Dora Maar, the artist’s muse and lover, posed in a chair. On Wednesday, the painting went for $26 million, or just over $29 million including fees, within its estimated range of $20 million to $30 million. (Final prices include the buyer’s commission to Sotheby’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000; 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)