Cabinet auctioned for $19.1 million

A stainless-steel cabinet containing 6,136 handcrafted and painted pills has set a record for the highest price paid at auction for a work by a living artist, an auctioneer said. Damien Hirst’s “Lullaby Spring” sold Thursday for $19.1 million, auction house Sotheby’s said in a statement. The sale propelled Hirst past previous bestseller Jasper Johns, whose “Figure 4” netted about $17 million last month in New York. Earlier this month, the artist unveiled a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with more than 8,000 diamonds at the opening of his latest exhibition at London’s two White Cube galleries. The glittering skull was valued at about $24 million.