A Kathleen O'Connor still-life painting has sold at auction for $198,000, including buyers premium, breaking the record for an artwork by a WA female artist.

O'Connor's 1921 Still Life with Lamp went to an anonymous buyer at more than double the estimated reserve price and nearly double the price paid for a work by East Kimberley artist Queenie McKenzie in 2007.

It was one of several rare works that achieved exceptional prices in an otherwise flat auction at Bonhams in Sydney on Monday night.

Two 1840s watercolours attributed to colonial artists S.T. Gill and George French Angas made $114,000 and $102,000 respectively after estimates of $20,000 to $30,000 each.

Four of seven works by Brett Whiteley found buyers at good prices but only 38 of 94 artworks were sold overall, Bonhams chairman Mark Fraser said.

"Uncertainty on financial markets has certainly spooked some bidders," Mr Fraser said.

The O'Connor work comes from a private collection once owned by Sir Ernest and Lady Lee-Steere, who was O'Connor's daughter.

"It's the best work of O'Connor's to have come on the market for years by a long shot," Mr Fraser said.

Bonhams WA representative Norah Ohrt said the sale showed O’Connor, who died in 1968, was finally reaching the level of national recognition she deserved alongside east coast Modernists Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor, Grace Cossington Smith and Margaret Olley.