AKIPRESS.COM - A vibrantly colored Picasso painting of a harem of women in Algiers became the highest selling painting ever at auction.

Les Femmes d' Alger, or Women of Algiers (Version O), fetched $179.4 million at Christie's New York Monday night, the auction house announced.

The oil-on-canvas painting full of vibrant reds, bright yellows and electric blues created in the 1950s is part of a Picasso series, according to Christie's. The Spanish painter was inspired by an 1834 work by Eugene Delacroix that now sits in the Louvre. Picasso intended the series to be an elegy to his friend, Matisse, who died just weeks before Picasso started the works.

Picasso often spoke of creating his own version, author Francoise Gilot wrote, saying that Picasso had her take him to see the Delacroix painting at least once a month.

The Delacroix work featured women in a harem smoking from a hookah.

Previously, Christie's sold the painting in 1997 for $31.9 million.