If the $7.6 million paid for a four-foot-tall set of smiling wooden bears has anything to do with it, the price point for the mid-season sales at the major auction houses might be about to go up.

Last Thursday, Christie’s sold Jeff Koons’s 1988 sculpture Winter Bears (1988) with a pre-sale estimate of $3.8 million–$5 million, the highest valued work ever to appear in a mid-season sale. That price point is more often seen in the major marquee evening sales. Koons made the piece for his famous “Banality” exhibition in 1988 (it was fabricated with historical Rococo techniques); the one that just sold at Christie’s, from the collection of Barbara Jakobson, is number 1 of an edition of 3 plus one artist proof. Edition 2 is in the Tate’s collection, and number 3 and the AP are in private collections (the latter sold at Christie’s in 2011 for $4.7 million).