A "blue period" Picasso has fetched more than £34 million at auction. Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto was purchased for £34,761,250 at the much anticipated Impressionist/Modern Evening sale.
Auctioneers Christie's said the event raised more than £152.5 million - the highest ever total in a UK art auction.
Picasso's piece was from the collection of Lord Lloyd-Webber and was dropped from a New York sale four years ago at the last moment due to an ownership claim.
The dispute, which dated back to a sale in the 1930s, has now been settled and Christie's said the claimants had "withdrawn all claims to the painting".
Sale of the 1903 Picasso will benefit the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, a charity which promotes arts, culture and heritage.
The portrait was purchased by an anonymous telephone bidder.
After the sale Lord Lloyd-Webber said: "I am pleased that my foundation has raised over £30 million, especially in such austere times.
"This is a significant amount to devote to the foundation's passions - architecture and the sponsorship of young talent in musical theatre."
Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation chairman Mark Wordsworth added: "We are pleased that the Angel de Fernandez de Soto by Pablo Picasso was sold at auction.
"The trustees of the foundation will now consider how best to apply the funds to promote the advancement of the arts, culture and heritage in the UK."
Christie's said that another of Picasso's works, Le baiser, sold for £12,137,250.
One of Monet's celebrated water-lily paintings, the 1906 Nympheas, was expected to fetch up to £40 million but failed to sell.
Masterpieces by Matisse, Renoir and Van Gogh also went under the hammer.
Henri Matisse's Nu à la chaise longue, which depicts a nude woman sprawled out on a chaise longue, was sold for £6,649,250.
Until the pre-sale exhibition at Christie's it had been unseen in public since the year after it was painted in 1923.
One of the last great female portraits painted by Gustav Klimt was another top seller. Colourful Frauenbildnis (Portrait of Ria Munk III) was sold for almost £19 million.
A work created by Vincent van Gogh while he was in voluntary confinement at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in 1889 was purchased for £9 million.
Parc de l'hopital Saint-Paul was painted during one of the richest and most important periods of the artist's career, a Christie's spokesman said.
The art market has seen prices soar in recent months. An equivalent sale at Christie's in New York last month saw the highest price ever paid at auction for an artwork when a Picasso masterpiece went for £70 million.
A self portrait by French painter Edouard Manet fetched more than £22 million at auction. The picture, painted between 1878 and 1879 was snapped up for £22,441,250 by an anonymous bidder at Sotheby's auction house in London.