DAMIEN HIRST’S own dealers propped up prices at his record-breaking art auction at Sotheby’s with estimated bids and purchases of £40m.

Three of his closest business associates, who have an interest in maintaining the high value of his work, made bids or purchases accounting for more than half of the £70.5m spent on the crucial opening day of the sale.

The high prices fetched on Monday evening set the tone for the two-day event, which raised a total of £111m for the artist and the auction house.

Hirst was selling 223 new pieces, which had been made for him at his six studios in the past two years.

The sale smashed the previous record for takings from a single artist sale at Sotheby’s by a factor of 10 and took place as financial markets went into freefall on Monday, the day Lehman Brothers declared its bankruptcy.

Hirst had claimed that the auction was a way to break free from his dealers, saying: “I was indoctrinated by the gallery system — that you don’t do auctions. If you don’t like the rules, change the rules.”

Rumours are circulating in the art world that, in fact, it was only thanks to the dealers that he was able to defy gravity.

One leading collector, who asked not to be named, said: “Nothing can convince me that on the very day banks were collapsing around us, collectors were buying these works at Sotheby’s. I don’t care how rich you are or where you’re from. When it looks like the world is going under, nobody buys.”

Another high-profile collector, who also asked not to be named, said: “The Damien Hirst industry is a skilfully managed market. It would be in a lot of people’s interest to make sure this sale worked.”

Modern art auctions are highly secretive. The auction houses protect the names of buyers and many bids are made through proxies or by telephone.

The Sunday Times has acquired a list compiled by three saleroom correspondents who attended the auction. They took a note of the winning bidder and the second highest, known as the “under-bidder”.

The list shows that a substantial role was played by Jay Jopling, Hirst’s long-standing friend and dealer. Jopling, the son of a former Conservative minister who established the White Cube as one of London’s best known galleries, bought £7.2m of artworks in the sale.

His influence was apparent from the sale of the first lot - a triptych painting strewn with butterflies and diamonds - which he won with a bid of just under £1m. This was twice the estimated value of the piece.

He also paid £2.9m for three glass cabinets containing fish in formaldehyde and fish skeletons, entitled Here Today. Gone Tomorrow.

Jopling arguably made more significant interventions with some of the lots that he did not buy. According to the watching journalists, he was one of the highest bidders for The Kingdom, a tiger shark in a steel tank, which was sold for £9.6m. His White Cube gallery was identified as the underbidder on lots sold for an estimated total of more than £20m.

Most of Jopling’s activity was in the Monday session, which exceeded all price expectations. Two other Hirst dealers, Larry Gagosian and Harry Blain, were active that evening.

Gagosian, Hirst’s dealer in America, bought one lot for £880,000. He was second highest bidder for a calf in a golden case, which sold for £10.3m.

Blain, a co-founder of the Haunch of Venison gallery who deals in Hirst’s works, bought two pieces and was underbidder on two others. Among his purchases was a glass cabinet containing medicines, which cost £1.3m.

This weekend White Cube and Gagosian declined to discuss whether they were acting on behalf of clients or buying on their own behalf to protect the market in Hirst works.

Blain said in a statement: “Bids were placed for private clients on their accounts who wanted to acquire the works for their respective collections.” Fellow dealers point out that White Cube, Gagosian and Blain have many clients interested in buying Hirst’s work so it was not entirely surprising that they would be heavily involved in an auction of new pieces.

Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the Fine Art Fund, sat at the auction between Jopling and a billionaire retailer. He said there was some “protectionism” and he saw Jopling bid for a “lousy piece”, which was likely to do badly.

Richard Feigen, a New York gallery owner who is a critic of Hirst’s work, believes the art market is open to manipulation. “The dealers have a huge interest in sustaining prices and they have substantial inventories of their own,” he said.

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