LONDON — A sale of erotic art through the ages topped more than five million pound at Sotheby’s auction house in London on Thursday, with one marble nude fetching nearly two million pounds.

The Erotic: Passion & Desire auction followed a six-day exhibition of more than 100 works, from the sensual to the explicit.

Collectively the works sold for 5.3 million pound (US$6.6 million), with the star of the show, La Grande Nevrose, a female figure in marble by French sculptor Jacques Loysel, going under the hammer for more than 1.8 million pound.

The work, kept in the Loysel family since his death in 1925, had been estimated to fetch less than 180,000 pound.

The sale was a record for the artist at auction, Sotheby’s said, as was a sculpture from French actress and artist Sarah Bernhardt, of the same era, whose marble Orphelia sold for just under 310,000 pound.

Nearly a quarter of the artworks being offered went unsold, including a painted coffee table with male members serving as "legs". The item was inspired by a similar piece of furniture said to have been found in the collection of Russian empress Catherine the Great.

The auction of sexually charged works from around the world showed the universal fascination with sexuality, according to Sotheby’s head of sale Constantine Frangos.

"A lot of it is depictions of the human form, some of it more graphic than others. What we see is a subject that has repeated itself throughout history," he said.

"What we’ve seen is a huge appreciation of the human form and erotica," Frangos added. — AFP