Tom Wesselmann's painting Mouth #8 fetched nearly $1.9 million US at Christie's Year of the Rabbit auction of artwork from the Playboy collection in New York on Wednesday. (Christie's Images/Associated Press) Tom Wesselmann's iconic pop art image of a smiling, lipsticked mouth fetched nearly $1.9 million US at an auction of artwork from the offices of Playboy magazine.

The Christie's auction — dubbed The Year of the Rabbit: The Playboy Collection — saw more than 100 artworks featured in the famed men's lifestyle periodical cross the block in New York on Wednesday.

The 1966 painting Mouth #8, which the magazine commissioned from Wesselmann, sold for $1,874,500 US (all prices include buyer's premium), just shy of the low end of its pre-sale estimate.

"I chose to do a huge cutout mouth in order to isolate and make more intense the one body part that has a high degree of both sexual and expressive connotations — but then painted a mouth with low degrees of each quality, to keep it, like the [Playboy] Playmate, somewhat glossy yet inviting," the artist told the magazine in 1967.

Another highlight of the sale was a Salvador Dali watercolour — depicting a nude woman reclining against rose-coloured cloth — that soared over its $100,000 to $150,000 pre-sale estimate to ultimately fetch $266,500.

The work, titled Playmate after Rokeby Venus, was also commissioned and created in 1966. For decades, the artwork hung in Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's bedroom.

Other lots included dozens of cartoons, contemporary works and approximately 80 photographs depicting stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Bo Derek, Elle MacPherson, Brigitte Bardot, Stephanie Seymour and Cindy Crawford. Almost all the lots have appeared in Playboy over the years.

"Playboy helped to change the very direction of commercial art — breaking down the wall between fine art and commercial art," the 84-year-old Hefner said in a recent interview.

Overall, the sale took in about $2.9 million.

Playboy magazine helped break down 'the wall between fine art and commercial art,' said founder Hugh Hefner, seen at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in November. (Jae C. Hong/Associated Press) With files from The Associated Press