The sale of a canvas by elusive British guerrilla artist Banksy sold for nearly $240,000 on Wednesday, midway through a week-long auction blitz in London.

The acrylic and spray paint work Bombing Middle England, which shows elderly lawn bowlers tossing grenades, sold to an anonymous buyer for £102,000 (about $238,000 Cdn or double its pre-sale estimate), Sotheby's said.

A Sotheby's employee takes in a collection of Banksy's artworks on Tuesday before an auction on Wednesday.
(Daniel Berehulak/Getty)

"He has an unnerving ability to get to the heart of the matter and is able to express strong political statements with poetry, energy and humour," said Cheyenne Westphal, chairman of contemporary art at Sotheby's Europe.

The sale marked a new record high price paid for an artwork by the up-and-coming graffiti artist, whose controversial and politicized creations have been gaining prominence and fans in the past few years.

Banksy, who has continued to keep his identity secret despite his growing reputation, began by scattering subversive stencilled images around the U.K. and surreptitiously posting his own artworks in major galleries in New York, Paris and London.

He made headlines around the world for recent art projects, which have included:

• Leaving 500 doctored copies of Paris Hilton's album in U.K. record stores.
• Erecting a life-size figure of a Guantanamo Bay detainee at Disneyland in California.
• A Los Angeles installation that included a live, painted elephant standing in a living-room scene.

Impressionist, modern works net high prices

More traditional artworks have also been selling as part of Impressionist and modern art auctions at both Christie's and Sotheby's.

On Tuesday night, Christie's sold £89.7 million (about $209 million) worth of art, with the evening's highlights including the sale of Fernand Léger's Les Maisons Dans Les Arbres (£.3 million, about $14.7 million) and Amedeo Modigliani's La Fillette Au Beret (£6.1 million, about $14.2 million).

Chaim Soutine painting L'Homme au Foulard Rouge, on display at Sotheby's in London, is checked out by an auction staff member.
(Sang Tan/Associated Press)

However, the Christie's auction failed to sell works by famed artists such as Egon Schiele, Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

On Monday night, Sotheby's racked up £94.9 million (about $221 million) in sales.

The highlight of that evening was an anonymous telephone bidder's purchase of Chaim Soutine's L'Homme au Foulard Rouge for £8.7million (about $20 million) — about 1.5 times its estimated high.

Many eyes were on Pierre-August Renoir's Les Deux Soeurs, on the block as part of several lots from the collection of the late Revlon cosmetics co-founder, Charles R. Lachman.

The Renoir ultimately fetched less than its top estimate, selling for £6.85 million (about $15.95 million).

With files from the Associated Press