Regardless of the credit crunch, high net worth individuals continue to splash out on art, according to data from Bloomberg.

The US news service said that London auction houses sold a record £558.8 million ($1.1 billion) of art - including fees - over two weeks, with buyers coming into the market seeking to make money as other investments stalled.

The total, calculated from auction house results, is the highest for Impressionist and contemporary sales in

London, beating the £521.1 million in February.

The auction houses' day sales of "affordable items'' under £500,000 showed continuing demand. A week ago, analysts said that the global economic slowdown and credit crunch might reduce sales for art priced at less than $1 million, while billionaires would continue to buy trophies.

The high point of the series was the £40.9 million with fees paid on 24 June at Christie's International for Claude Monet's 1919 water-lily painting, "Le Bassin aux Nympheas.''

The price, twice the mid estimate, bid in the room by the London-based art advisor Tania Buckrell Pos, was the highest paid for an Impressionist work of art in
Europe, said Christie's.

For the first time, Christie's and Sotheby's held Impressionist and contemporary auctions in successive weeks. Their contemporary sales, combined with Phillips de Pury, fetched £260.9 million. February's sales were £250.1 million.

The pursuit of "passion investments'' by the world's richest individuals remains undeterred by economic volatility, said the World Wealth Report, published last month by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

Worldwide, high net worth individuals spent 15.9 per cent, the highest proportion, of their "Investment-of-Passion'' dollars on fine art, said the report. The European wealthy are the most avid consumers, spending 22 per cent of these dollars on art, it said.