representation of geographical sites in the Yuendumu region and the dreaming stories associated with those sites. She concludes that there is "a topographic rationale for the order in which the Dreamings appear from left to right (that is, east to west) across the painting [as well as for] the transverse Dreaming trails". However, beyond this general principle, she argues that the layout of symbols and images is influenced by the desire to present a symmetrical work. There is greater visual symmetry in this painting than in its 1976 predecessor; symmetry is a strong influence in the works of many of the early Western Desert artists, including Clifford Possum, Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa. Warlugulong (1977) is acclaimed as a landmark Indigenous painting; a great work by one of the country's foremost artists. Described as "epic" and "sprawling", Genocchio said of it that is "a work of real national significance [and] one of the most important 20th-century Australian paintings". The authors of the National Gallery of Australia's book, Collection Highlights, characterises the painting as the artist's most significant. Artist and curator Brenda L Croft agreed, considering it "an epic painting, encyclopaedic in both content and ambition" and "the artist's most significant work". The work and the price it achieved at auction in 2007 are cited as evidence of both the importance of Clifford Possum as an artist, and of the maturation and growth of the Australian Indigenous art market. Sale history Warlugulong was first exhibited at a show in Alice Springs, where it attracted crowds of interested viewers, but failed to sell. Realities Gallery in Melbourne then included the work in a major exhibition of Papunya Tula artworks. It was purchased for A$1,200 by the Commonwealth Bank, which hung it in a bank training centre cafeteria on the Mornington Peninsula. The bank sold it by auction in 1996. The auction house trading the work expected it to fetch around $5,000 and did not make a feature of it in the catalogue, but dealers including Hank Ebes, the successful bidder, recognised the painting's significance and it sold for $36,000 plus commission. After hanging in Ebes's living room for eleven years, it was auctioned in Melbourne by Sotheby's on 24 July 2007. It sold for $2.4 million, thoroughly eclipsing the previous record for an Indigenous Australian painting, set when Emily Kngwarreye's Earth's Creation was bought in May of the same year for