Auction history was made at Christie’s postwar and contemporary evening sale on Wednesday, which raked in $495,021,500 — the highest ever tally for any auction in any category. It nicked the $491.4 million mark set at Christie’s Impressionist and modern evening sale back in November 2006, the previous high for any single auction. The tally also eclipsed last May’s $388.4 million total.

Tonight, only four of the 70 lots offered failed to find buyers for a near-perfect buy-in rate by lot and value of six percent. The tally crushed presale expectations of $288.9-401.4 million, though that spread does not reflect the buyer’s premium included in the overall result. Head-turning statistics included the fact that 59 of the 66 lots sold hurdled the million-dollar mark. Of those, 23 made over $5 million. More incredibly, nine topped $10 million.

A dozen artist records were set, led by the ravishing cover lot, Jackson Pollock’s small but mighty “Number 19, 1948,” a stunning drip painting in oil and enamel on paper mounted on canvas, which sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for a whopping $58,363,750 (est. $25-35 million). The epic bidding battle for the Pollock began at $18 million and quickly escalated at million-dollar increments to a point where three bidders were still competing at the $40 million plus mark, including dealers Jose Mugrabi and Dominique Levy.

Described in the catalogue as the property of an American foundation, the shimmering painting, which last sold at auction at Christie’s New York in May 1993 for $2,422,500, subsequently entered the collection of Potomac, Maryland billionaire Mitchell Rales and his Glenstone Foundation. The price obliterated the mark set by “Number 4,” a 1951 canvas that made $40,402,500 at Sotheby’s New York last November.

It couldn’t have hurt that critic Clement Greenberg, reviewing the Pollock exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery in January 1949, singled out “Number 19,” saying it “seemed more than enough to justify the claim that Pollock is one of the major painters of our time.”

Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” may have sold for $120 million at Sotheby’s last year, but still, the fact that an AbEx work on paper could sell for $50-plus million is an extraordinary milestone. The question easily arises, what the heck happened between Sotheby’s strong but sober $293.5-million sale on Tuesday and Christie’s fantastic results on Wednesday?

“We had two single-owner collections,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s America and global head of private sales, shortly after the fireworks ended, “and we had great single works, so we had the culmination of both elements.” Porter was referring in part works from the Armand and Celeste Bartos collection, which together made $30.2 million, and a trove of paintings from the estate of crooner Andy Williams, which brought $46 million.

Singular artworks across a broad spectrum of time and styles went through the roof, including the huge and funky Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, “Dustheads” (1982), executed in acrylic, oilstick, spray enamel, and metallic paint on canvas, which sold to another anonymous telephone bidder for a record $48,843,750 (est. $25-35 million). The Wild West bidding for this Basquiat, known in the trade as a classic “pissing contest,” saw two mega-rich individuals duke it out in a cat-and-mouse bidding game that started at $20 million. It left the previous Basquiat record, set at Christie’s New York last November when “Untitled” (1981) made $26,402,500, in the dust.

Semi-retired art dealer Annina Nosei, who harbored Basquiat in her basement space on Prince Street at the dawn of the 80s, and sold the painting for under $5,000 to Maggie Bult (at least as she recalled it), attended the sale. Now a senior champion ballroom dancer, Nosei said, “I wish I kept it. I never come to auctions, but I did for this painting. It is a masterpiece, both for its intrinsic size, the painterly language, and the structure itself. I’m without words.”

The record Basquiat came to market with a third-party guarantee, taking the risk off Christie’s and assuring that the anonymous speculator made a fortune on the transaction.

Another Basquiat, this one a work on paper, “Furious Man,” also made a huge sum, selling to Jerry Lauren for $5,723,750 (est. $1-1.5 million). It last sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 2001 for $302,750. Here, it was one of the standout pieces from the Andy Williams collection.

“I’m a folk art collector,” said Lauren, as he exited the heaving, standing-room-only salesroom, “and I can identify with this because it’s American street folk art.” Lauren, who bid from a last row seat in the salesroom, is the creative head of men’s fashion at Ralph Lauren (no relation). He explained that he collects Bill Traylor, a storied folk artist, as well as American weathervanes, stoneware, and “very rare Americana.” Needless to say, it is his first Basquiat.

Another record went to the remarkable Roy Lichtenstein painting from 1963, “Woman With Flowered Hat,” a pastiche-slash-Pop-appropriation of a Picasso painting that sold to London-based jewelry magnate Laurence Graff for $56,123,750 (est. on request in the region of $30-40 million).

“I got a masterpiece and I’m very lucky, because it’s one of four ladies Lichtenstein did and this is the best example,” said a still-elated Graff, buttonholed outside Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters. “There are fewer and fewer masterpieces coming to market and I love this painting.” Graff also cracked that it is just weeks away from his birthday, “so it’s going to be my birthday present.”

The painting mashed the previous high set a year ago at Sotheby’s New York when Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl” (1964) sold for $44,882,500.

The art market tonight appeared giddily bulletproof as London-imported auctioneer Jussi Pylkannen confidently extracted multi-million-dollar bids from the room and banks of telephone bidders. In this super-charged atmosphere, certainly reminiscent of past bubble moments, uncanny prices popped like vintage champagne corks. The top-class and widely exhibited Philip Guston AbEx-era painting, “To Fellini” (1958), which was chased by at least five bidders, soared to a record $25,883,750 (est. $8-12 million). Piero Manzoni's folded abstraction, “Achrome” (1958) made a huge $14,123,750 (est. $6-9 million).

In fact, no matter where you turned, it seemed as if the spigot was left on. Another AbEx icon, Mark Rothko and his darkly luminous “Untitled (Black on Maroon),” also dated from 1958, sold to New York dealer Dominque Levy for $27,003,750 (est. $15-20 million). (Levy also bought Willem de Kooning's sexy, 28-by-20-inch “Woman (Blue Eyes),” from 1953, for $19,163,750 [est. $12-17 million]).

Gerhard Richter’s richly textured and colorful “Abstraktes bild, Dunkel (613-12)” (1986) sold to a telephone bidder for $21,963,750 (est. $14-18 million). The anonymous seller bought it from Sperone Westwater in New York during one of Richter’s first exhibitions in the U.S. in 1987. At the time, the work was well under $100,000.

But the standout evening wasn’t all about the past either, as evidenced by Julie Mehretu’s mural-like architectural landscape, “Retopistics: A Renegade Excation” (2001), which sold for a record $4,603,750 (est. $1.4-1.8 million).

“This is a landmark moment for us,” said Koji Inoue, Christie’s head of the evening sale in an after-sale remark. “It was a win-win across all categories.”

The contemporary action closes out the season Thursday evening at Phillips.