Special Report

This Is the Most Expensive Artwork Ever Sold

Thampapon / Getty Images

The art world is full of stories of now famed artists who died destitute or, if they were fortunate, were able to eke out a living by selling their paintings or sculptures for what would today be considered a pittance. One wonders what Vincent Van Gogh, to take one example, would have thought – when he was dying penniless and convinced that he had failed as an artist – if he knew that about a century after his death, one of his portraits would sell for almost $83 million.

Despite that hefty price, Van Gogh’s “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” is far from the most expensive artwork ever sold. That honor would go to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” a depiction of Jesus Christ, which commanded a price of $450.3 million in 2017 (about $534 million when adjusted for inflation). Although the work was set to be displayed at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, to date it has failed to make an appearance in the prestigious museum. (Here are the most expensive museums in America.)

To determine the most expensive artwork/painting ever sold, 24/7 Tempo reviewed several art sites and lists, including Art in Context, Invaluable, Kooness, and The Art Wolf. In case of auction sales, we attempted to confirm prices through Christie’s or Sotheby’s. In cases of private sales, we attempted to confirm prices and dates through major publications such as the New York Times, Bloomberg, and art sites such as Artnet, but some remain estimates. 

Prices were adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calendar.  Prices were converted from other currencies using historical exchange rates from Exchange Rates UK.

The most expensive works of art ever sold were produced by some of the most influential painters in modern history, including Picasso, van Gogh, Pollock, and Klimt. Many of the works represent novel styles of painting by artists who are credited with ushering in new art movements including cubism and abstract expressionism.

Click here to see the most expensive artworks ever sold

At the time of their purchase, some of these paintings were the single most expensive art ever sold to date. They hail from a range of countries including Italy, France, the U.S., China, the Netherlands, and Austria. (Many of the Austrian works were stolen by the Nazis during World War II and subsequently reclaimed by the descendants of their original owners.) 

Three of these high-profile purchases are connected to a running feud in which a Russian oligarch alleges that his Swiss art broker defrauded him to the tune of $1 billion. And multiple have been purchased by American hedge fund manager and billionaire Steven A. Cohen (who runs one of the 20 best-performing hedge funds of all time.)

Courtesy of RMN-Grand Palais / Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

25. Garçon à la pipe, 1905
> Artist: Pablo Picasso
> Sale price: $104,168,000, May 5, 2004
> Inflation-adjusted price: $161,014,750

Painted during Picasso’s Rose Period, ““Garçon à la pipe” belonged to the German Jewish banker and art collector Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy until his death in 1935. His widow subsequently sold the painting – against his will – and it was eventually purchased by diplomat John Hay Whitney for $30,000 in 1950. In 2004, Whitney’s foundation sold the painting at Sotheby’s for $104.2 million.

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Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images News via Getty Images

24. Three Studies of Lucian Freud, 1969
> Artist: Francis Bacon
> Sale price: $142,405,000, Nov. 12, 2013
> Inflation-adjusted price: $172,462,790

This triptych depicting Francis Bacon’s friend and rival artist Lucian Freud was divided for over a decade until the late ’80s. The complete trio was first exhibited in the U.S. in 1999 and in the U.K. in 2013. In November of 2013, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” sold at Christie’s for $142.4 million to American billionaire Elaine Wynn.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

23. Twelve Landscape Screens, 1925
> Artist: Qi Baishi
> Sale price: $140,800,000 (931.5 million yuan), Dec. 17, 2017
> Inflation-adjusted price: $176,478,380

This set of 12 ink-brush paintings by self-taught calligrapher Qi Baishi (1864-1957) – one of China’s most influential modern painters – was originally a birthday gift for a renowned Beijing doctor. The set was displayed numerous times in the ’50s and in 2017 it sold at Beijing Poly Auction for $140.8 million, making it the most expensive Chinese work of art ever sold.

22. Bal du Moulin de la Galette, 1876
> Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
> Sale price: $78,100,000, May 17, 1990
> Inflation-adjusted price: $176,689,760

This outdoor dance hall scene by Renoir belonged to the French painter Gustave Caillebotte until his death, then spent over 30 years in the Musée de Luxembourg in Paris. It was bought by John Hay Whitney in 1929 for $165,000. In 1990, Whitney’s widow Betsey Cushing Whitney sold the painting at Sotheby’s for $78.1 million to a Japanese art collector who is believed to have forfeited the masterpiece to debt collectors, who privately re-sold it for only $50 million.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

21. Nu Couché (Sur Le Côté Gauche), 1917
> Artist: Amedeo Modigliani
> Sale price: $157,200,000, May 14, 2018
> Inflation-adjusted price: $182,635,620

Part of a series of unabashed nudes that caused a scandal upon their first exhibition in Paris, this Modigliani sold for $139 million (plus a buyer’s premium, totaling $157.2 million) which fell short of the estimated $150 million hammer price that Sotheby’s was aiming for. Nevertheless, at the time of its sale, it was the highest price Sotheby’s had ever received at auction.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

20. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, 1912
> Artist: Gustav Klimt
> Sale price: $150,000,000, date unknown, 2016
> Inflation-adjusted price: $183,332,250

This portrait of Viennese socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer is among multiple works by Klimt that were stolen from the Bloch-Bauer family by the Nazis during World War II and subsequently displayed at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna. In 2006, after lengthy legal battles, five Klimt canvases were returned to Bloch-Bauer’s niece, who sold this portrait to Oprah Winfrey for nearly $88 million. In 2016, Winfrey sold the painting to an anonymous Chinese collector for $150 million.

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ergsart / Flickr

19. Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890
> Artist: Vincent van Gogh
> Sale price: $82,500,000, May 15, 1990
> Inflation-adjusted price: $186,644,120

This portrait of Van Gogh’s close friend – a doctor who cared for the artist during his last months of life – set a world record in 1990 when it sold at Christie’s for $82.5 million to a Japanese art collector named Ryoei Saito. After Saito threatened to have the portrait burned alongside him after his death (along with Renoir’s “Bal du Moulin de la Galette,” which he’d also purchased), the painting quietly sold – possibly to an Italian art collector – and its whereabouts are currently unknown.

18. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907
> Artist: Gustav Klimt
> Sale price: $135,000,000, June (day unknown), 2006
> Inflation-adjusted price: $194,479,840

Another Klimt work stolen by the Nazis and eventually returned to its owner’s heir, the first “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” is the subject of a 2015 film called “Woman in Gold.” The film details the years of legal battles that Bloch-Bauer’s niece Maria Altmann (played by Helen Mirren) endured in order to reclaim the painting. Intent on the work being accessible to the public, the real-life Altmann sold the portrait to American billionaire Ronald Lauder, who placed it in the Neue Galerie in New York City.

Stroud / Express / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

17. Le Rêve, 1932
> Artist: Pablo Picasso
> Sale price: $155,000,000, March 26, 2013
> Inflation-adjusted price: $194,635,460

In 2006, hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen was set to buy this cubist portrait of Picasso’s muse and mistress from casino mogul Steve Wynn, when Wynn accidentally punctured the painting with his elbow. In 2013 – after a $90,000 restoration – Cohen finally purchased the painting from Wynn for $155 million ($134 million in 2006 dollars).

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Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images Entertainment via Getty Images

16. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, 1964
> Artist: Andy Warhol
> Sale price: $195,040,000, May 8, 2022
> Inflation-adjusted price: $195,040,000

In early May of this year, this iconic Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million at Christie’s in New York City, setting the record for the highest price ever paid for an American work of art. The silkscreen print, entitled “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” is one in a series of five depictions of the movie star produced by Andy Warhol in 1964. Four of the prints were damaged (and later repaired) when a guest at Warhol’s studio pulled out a gun and shot through a stack of the completed prints.

Dan Kitwood / Getty Images News via Getty Images

15. Masterpiece, 1962
> Artist: Roy Lichtenstein
> Sale price: $165,000,000, Jan. (day unknown), 2017
> Inflation-adjusted price: $198,604,180

Philanthropist and art collector Agnes Gund sold this pop art painting by Roy Lichtenstein to hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen for $165 million in order to create the Arts for Justice Fund, which seeks to promote criminal justice reform, reduce mass incarceration, and enhance support systems for people who are coming out of incarceration. In recent decades, Cohen has amassed one of the greatest private art collections in the world.

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Henry Bowden / Archive Photos via Getty Images

14. Woman III, 1952-1953
> Artist: Willem de Kooning
> Sale price: $137,500,000, Nov. (day unknown), 2006
> Inflation-adjusted price: $199,457,570

One in a series of six paintings by William de Kooning featuring women, this abstract expressionist piece was housed in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary art from the late ’70s to 1994. However, after the revolution in ’79 it could not be shown due to its subject matter. In 1994, media mogul Dave Geffen traded a 16th-century Persian manuscript for the painting, and in 2006 he sold it in turn to billionaire Steven A. Cohen.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

13. No. 5, 1948, 1948
> Artist: Jackson Pollock
> Sale price: $140,000,000, Nov. 2, 2006
> Inflation-adjusted price: $203,084,070

This eight-by-four-foot painting done with synthetic gloss enamel paints was initially purchased for $1,500 by Alfonso Ossorio, a painter and close friend of Pollock’s. As it arrived damaged, Pollock eventually repainted the whole thing for Ossorio. Eventually it came into the possession of Dave Geffen (of Geffen Records and DreamWorks Pictures), who sold it to an anonymous private collector for $140 million. (Though the sale was reported in November of 2006, it might have taken place as early as May of that year.)

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

12. The Standard Bearer, 1636
> Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
> Sale price: $197,855,000 ( €175 million), Dec. (day unknown), 2021
> Inflation-adjusted price: $207,431,170

This self-portrait by Rembrandt belonged to the French branch of the Rothschild family for over 180 years. In 2019, it went up for sale and was declared a national treasure of France to prevent its export while the Louvre scrambled unsuccessfully to acquire the funds to purchase it. After they forfeited their right of first refusal, the Dutch State and the Rijksmuseum purchased the painting for  €175 million.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

11. Nu Couché, 1917
> Artist: Amedeo Modigliani
> Sale price: $170,405,000, Nov. 9, 2015
> Inflation-adjusted price: $209,865,760

Painted for Modigliani’s main art dealer, Léopold Zborowski, Nu Couché is one in a series of nudes that caused a scandal during the Italian painter’s only art show in Paris in 1917. The painting passed through many hands before it was finally sold for $170.4 million at Christie’s to Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian, co-founder of the Long Museum in Shanghai.

Andrew Burton / Getty Images News via Getty Images

10. Les Femmes d’Alger (“Version O”), 1955
> Artist: Pablo Picasso
> Sale price: $179,400,000, May 11, 2015
> Inflation-adjusted price: $220,507,990

From 1954 to 1955, Picasso produced a series of 15 paintings entitled “Les femmes d’Alger (Versions A through O)” inspired by an 1834 painting by Eugéne Delacroix. The series was initially purchased by art collectors Victor and Sally Ganz, who eventually sold 10 of the paintings. The remaining five were sold at Christie’s in 1997 as part of the Ganz Collection, with Version O subsequently selling again in 2015 for $179.4 million.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

9. Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, 1634
> Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn
> Sale price: $180,000,000 (160 million), Feb. 1, 2016
> Inflation-adjusted price: $221,893,040

This set of full-length wedding portraits of a Dutch couple was purchased in 1877 by Baron Gustave de Rothschild and was rarely displayed thereafter. In 2016, owner Eric de Rothschild sold the paintings for €80 million apiece, through Christie’s to both the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum. The two museums will alternate showings of the portraits, displaying them side by side, but owning them separately.

Public Domain / Brooklyn Museum via Wikimedia Commons

8. No. 6 (Violet, Green, and Red), 1951
> Artist: Mark Rothko
> Sale price: $186,000,000 (€140 million), Aug. (day unknown), 2014
> Inflation-adjusted price: $228,575,150

A key piece in the so-called Bouvier Affair, in which Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier allegedly defrauded clients by buying paintings at lower prices, then overcharging collectors for the purchases that he pretended to broker, this abstract expressionist piece by Latvian-American painter Mark Rothko sold to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2014 for €140 million, which was potentially 80 million more than Bouvier had paid for it.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

7. Wasserschlangen (Water Serpents) II, 1904-1907
> Artist: Gustav Klimt
> Sale price: $183,800,000, date unknown, 2013 (resold for $170 million in 2015)
> Inflation-adjusted price: $231,912,630

Another piece implicated in the Bouvier Affair, “Wasserschlangen II” was originally owned by Viennese Jew Jenny Steiner, who fled Austria during World War II. The painting was then confiscated by the Nazis and ended up in the hands of Nazi filmmaker Gustav Ucicky. Ucicky’s widow and Steiner’s heirs eventually worked out a deal to split the proceeds and sold the painting to Bouvier, who flipped it to Dmitry Rybolovlev for $183.8 million.

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benkrut / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

6. Number 17A, 1948
> Artist: Jackson Pollock
> Sale price: $200,000,000, Sept. (day unknown), 2015
> Inflation-adjusted price: $245,683,670

In 2015, Ken Griffin, a hedge fund manager and board member of the Art Institute of Chicago, bought this Pollock piece from the David Geffen Foundation for $200 million. “Number 17A” is considered one of Pollock’s most notable works and was featured in a 1949 edition of Life Magazine that pushed the artist into the spotlight. Griffin loaned the work to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Thampapon / Getty Images

5. No. 20 (Yellow Expanse), 1953
> Artist: Mark Rothko
> Sale price: $200,000,000, date unknown (but no later than Sept.), 2014
> Inflation-adjusted price: $247,847,540

This massive 10 by 15 foot Rothko painting resided in the private collection of the self taught horticulturist and banking heiress Bunny Mellon until her death in 2014. It is presumed to have been sold privately along with two other paintings from her estate for a total of $300 million, with estimates that No. 20 sold for $200 million.

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Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

4. Nafea Faa Ipoipo?, 1892
> Artist: Paul Gauguin
> Sale price: $210,000,000, Sept. (day unknown), 2014
> Inflation-adjusted price: $257,874,650

This painting by French post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin was initially reported to have sold for nearly $300 million in a private deal in 2014; however an ensuing legal dispute involving an unpaid commission fee revealed that the painting had actually sold for $210 million – still a hefty sum – to the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Its Tahitian title translates to ‘When Will You Marry?’.

3. The Card Players, 1890-1892
> Artist: Paul Cézanne
> Sale price: $250,000,000+, April (day unknown), 2011
> Inflation-adjusted price: $324,909,070

From 1890 to 1985, the French post-impressionist painter Paul Cézanne produced a series of five paintings of card players in various settings. While four of them reside at various museums in the U.S., London, and Paris, the fifth is in the private collection of the royal family of Qatar. The wealthy nation purchased the painting in 2011 in a private deal for over $250 million, which at the time was the highest price ever paid for a work of art.

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

2. Interchange, 1955
> Artist: Willem de Kooning
> Sale price: $300,000,000, Sept. (date unknown), 2015
> Inflation-adjusted price: $368,525,500

Soon after it was completed, this painting by Dutch-American abstract expressionist painter WIllem de Kooning sold for $4,000. It subsequently sold for $20.6 million in 1989, making it the most expensive artwork ever sold during a living artist’s lifetime. Along with Jackson Pollock’s “Number 17A,” hedge fund manager Ken Griffin purchased “Interchange” from the David Geffen Foundation in 2015.

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Carl Court / Getty Images News via Getty Images

1. Salvator Mundi, c. 1500
> Artist: Leonardo da Vinci
> Sale price: $450,300,000, Nov. 15, 2017
> Inflation-adjusted price: $533,593,150

This painting of Jesus Christ, believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci and then painted over until it resembled a copy, was found at an estate sale in 2005 and purchased for $10,000. It was then restored and authenticated by multiple sources and sold to Swiss dealer Yves Bouvier, who sold it to Dmitry Rybolovlev for $127.5 million. The Russian oligarch then sold it through Christie’s for $450.3 million to a Saudi prince who purchased it for eventual display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

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