The Scream sold for £74m yesterday. As @rakeshlobster tweeted today, this is "0.119 Instagrams":

Pricey on a per-image basis. Few simultaneous uniques.

Whether technically worth it or not, within 12 minutes of bidding it had become the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.  It even surpassed Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust”, which was sold two years ago at Christies in New York.

The Scream's previous owner told the FT he was happy to sell it:

"It has become too important to keep in my home. It should be seen by many people. Of course there is the danger that it will disappear but it is also a fact that private lenders provide many works of art for major exhibitions."

But if the painting is indeed given to a gallery, will this harm its value? The price of an art work relies on a subtle balance between mystique (the thought that it is hung in a bedroom of some fabulous mansion), and remaining unforgotten by the public. But this picture is so widely copied - the New Yorker receives about two “Scream” inspired cartoons a week - that keeping it in the public consciousness shouldn't be a problem. The question is: splashed on every student's bedroom wall, how does it keep its power?

Simon Shaw, Sotheby's head of impressionist and modern art, told the FT that the key is in the original painting itself:

“It is an unforgettable, powerful, dense image. If you go to see the ‘Mona Lisa’, it looks exactly as you expect it to look. But with ‘The Scream’, people are not prepared for it. They think they know it because they know the cartoons, the pastiches, the parodies. But the original is something else. Its power to shock remains undiminished.”

But perhaps the power of The Scream lies in the numbers after all. With four "originals", the painting can be simultaneously public and private, kept in a mysterious location, and hung on general display. Whatever happens to this particular copy, we've got three spares.