Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens' 'The Holy Family with an angel' led Christie's Old Masters Evening Sale in London last night.

"The prime composition from which a number of studio variants derive", according to the auctioneer, the circa 1625 work sold for £1.8m ($2.3m) - more than doubling its £800,000 estimate.

Jacob Jordaens' nativity-themed work proved a hit with bidders

The second-most valuable lot of the night was another circa 1625 piece, Balthasar van der Ast's The Zomerschoon tulip. The Dutch painter's offering sold for £809,000 ($1m).

There were also new artist records for Francois Clouet, Corneille de Lyon, Jean Decourt, Judith Leyster and Battista Zelotti.

It is the final act in a strong 2016 for the auction house's old masters sales, as Henry Pettifer, the head of old masters and British paintings at Christie's London, explained.

"Tonight's Old Masters Evening Sale concludes a fantastic year for the department and brings the running total for global Old Master auctions at Christie's to £147 million," he said.

"This year was led by the record-breaking sale of Rubens's masterpiece Lot and his Daughters, which sold in July for £44.9 million, the highest auction price for any work of art sold in Europe in 2016."

Out of his father's shadow... Peter Brueghel the Younger's return from the Kermesse

The auction follows a strong showing at the corresponding Sotheby's sale the previous evening, where Pieter Brueghel the Younger's (1564-1637) Return from the Kermesse achieved £2.6 million ($3.3m).

The sale is the latest evidence the younger Brueghel's artwork is gaining in desirability, following four centuries in the shadow of his father.