Knife Behind Back by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara is best known for portraits that repeatedly depict a young girl with piercing eyes, set against the blank and pristine background. The girl looks directly at the audience, sometimes wearing a pure smile and other times casting a hostile glance, and seems to question the world of adults.

Knife Behind Back, an acrylic painting on canvas that Nara created in 2000, sold for HK$196 million on Sunday during Sotheby's sales in Hong Kong. The price made Nara's work the most expensive by a living Japanese artist.

The painting, measuring 2.34 meters by 2.08 meters, shows the angry-looking young girl who appears in Nara's work, rendered in a standing posture to one side, with her right arm behind her body while her left arm is visible, conveying an atmosphere mixed with stillness and tension.