Top most expensive painting sold at auction

The acquisition of paintings and art objects is perceived both as a contribution to a personal brand and as an investment with an investment horizon of 10-20 years or more. Over time, expensive painting become even more expensive.

Prior to the pandemic, the art market was booming. In 2019, Jeff Koons’ stainless steel sculpture “Rabbit” was bought for a record $91.1 million, and it became the most expensive work sold during the artist’s lifetime. The previous owner purchased the sculpture for his collection in 1992 for only one million dollars.

In this regard, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the rating, which presents the most expensive painting ever sold at auctions in the world.

“Savior of the World” by Leonardo da Vinci. 1499-1510

First place – “Savior of the World” by Leonardo da Vinci. The name of the buyer was not disclosed, but it is known that on November 15, 2017, he paid $ 400 million for the painting itself and another $ 50.3 million as a commission to the auction house Christie’s. As a result, Leonardo’s masterpiece sold for a record $450.3 million. And this is the most expensive painting ever sold in auction.

Leonardo da Vinci painted The Savior of the World around 1500, commissioned by King Louis XII of France. Around the second half of the 18th century, the painting was lost and was considered lost for many centuries. The canvas, slightly tinted, was discovered quite recently – in 2005 at one of the regional auctions in the United States. The Savior of the World was da Vinci’s first work to be discovered since 1909.

The “Savior of the World” was put up for auction by Rybolovlev, who bought the painting from Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier for $127 million. Who in turn bought it at Sotheby’s for about $75 million in 2013.

In 2015, Rybolovlev accused Bouvier of fraud. According to the billionaire, the art dealer deceived him by about $ 1 billion when selling several masterpieces of fine art at once, among which were paintings by da Vinci, Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin. In February 2015, Bouvier was arrested and later released on $10 million bail. The Swiss and Monaco authorities are still investigating the fraud case.

Rybolovlev later exhibited some of the paintings purchased from Bouvier at Christieʼs, but lost a total of about $120 million on resale. The official representative of the billionaire said that the sale of da Vinci’s painting should put an end to the high-profile scandal.

“Women of Algiers” by Pablo Picasso. 1955

The canvas was sold at the auction house Christie’s in May 2015 for $179.4 million. The buyer was the former Prime Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al-Thani. It was the most expensive painting of the auction to November 15, 2017.

“Women of Algeria (Version O)” is the only painting that previously belonged to a private individual. The first owners of the canvas were the spouses Victor and Sally Ganz. They purchased the painting in 1956 from the artist. Pablo Picasso sold it for $ 212.5 thousand. In 1997, the painting “Women of Algiers” was put up for auction and sold to an unknown collector for $ 31.9 million. Who became the new owner of Pablo Picasso’s painting “Women of Algiers (Version O)” is unknown. His name has not been released.

“Reclining Nude” by Amedeo Modigliani. 1917

The painting was purchased in November 2015 at a Christie’s auction in New York for $170.4 million. Chinese businessman Liu Yiqian became the buyer. This painting ranks third, the most expensive painting sold in the auction.

Painted in 1917, the painting was auctioned at the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale at Sotheby’s on 14 May. The starting price was $150 million.

“Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 masterpiece ‘Reclining Nude’ sold for $157.2 million, the highest auction price in Sotheby’s history,” the auction house tweeted.

A statement on the auction website notes that the painting’s previous owner purchased it for $26.9 million.

During the life of Modigliani, his work was not successful and became in demand only after his death. In recent years, the works of an outstanding artist have been sold at auctions for multimillion sums more than once. In 2015, his painting “Reclining Nude” was auctioned at Christie’s for $170 million.

“Three sketches for a portrait of Lucian Freud” by Francis Bacon. 1969

The work was sold in 2013 at Christie’s in New York for $142.4 million to American billionaire Elayne Wynn.

On November 12, 2013, Elaine Wynn, co-owner of the Wynn Casino Empire and ex-wife of Las Vegas mogul and art collector Stephen Wynn, purchased Francis Bacon’s Three Sketches of Lucian Freud for a record-breaking $142.4 million!

Thus, this painting became the most expensive work of art ever sold at a public auction. The whole process of selling the lot took only six minutes. After “tough” bidding, several bidders raised the value of Bacon’s triptych from $80 million to a final price of $127 million. The record even broke the sensational sale of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, which was sold in 2013 at Sotheby’s for $120 million.

“The Scream” by Edvard Munch. 1893

The painting sold in May 2021 for $119.9 million at Sotheby’s. There are still disputes regarding the name of the new owner: either it went to the American financier Leon Black, or to the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

The starting price of the lot was $50 million. According to the BBC, the auction lasted only 15 minutes. Seven potential buyers competed for the painting. The name of the new owner of E. Munch’s work is unknown.

Note that earlier the title of the most expensive painting in the world belonged to the canvas “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” by Pablo Picasso, which in 2010. sold for $106.5 million at Christie’s in New York

The Scream by Norwegian Expressionist Munch considered one of the most recognizable paintings in the history of fine arts. The artist created a series of paintings under this name in 1893-1910.

“Young girl with a flower basket” by Pablo Picasso. 1905

The painting sold in 2018 at Christie’s for $115 million. The buyer wished to remain anonymous, but his deal was one of Picasso’s most expensive sales.

A magnificent canvas in the nude style of the so-called “pink” period of Picasso. The girl depicted naked with a string of pearls around her neck and with a pink ribbon in her dark hair. And in the hands – a basket with red flowers. Once this work was in the Rockefeller collection. And in 2018, it bought by an anonymous person at Christie’s auction for $115 million. It is curious that the artist himself sold this work to gallery owner Clovis Sago for a ridiculous 75 francs.

Then “Young Girl with a Basket of Flowers” sold to Gertrude Sago and Leo Stein – again for a very small amount – only 150 francs. By the way, Gertrude Stein at first had a low opinion of the picture, but later changed it to the exact opposite – and convinced Leo that she was right. 

After the death of Gertrude Stein, the painting bought by the New York Museum of Modern Art. But soon sold to David Rockefeller. After Rockefeller’s death in 2017, it exhibited at Christie’s and sold for $115 million on May 8, 2018.Making it one of the most expensive paintings in the world ever sold at auction. 

“Hacks” by Claude Monet. 1891

This painting from the famous series of paintings “Haystacks”s sold in 2019 at Christie’s for $110.7 million. Which was a record not only for Monet’s works, but also for Impressionist paintings in general. The auction house does not name the buyer.

The top lot of Sotheby’s evening sales boasted a brilliant provenance: it bought directly from Monet’s dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1892 by the wife of Chicago millionaire Potter Palmer, Berthe Honore Palmer. In the Palmers collection, according to some sources, there were up to 80 works by Claude Monet, and Berthe Honoré gave particular preference to the series – at one time she acquired eight works with haystacks, four landscapes with poplars, three views of the Rouen Cathedral and three landscapes of the morning Seine. Some of the works of Berta Palmer subsequently resold, but “Haystacks”, which set a record at Sotheby’s, remained in her collection until her death, and then moved to the collection of her son. Monet’s work belonged to the Palmer collection until May 14, 1986: on this day it first went to auction and sold for $ 2.53 million.

Exactly 33 years later, on May 14, 2019, in the struggle of six contenders, the hammer price of the Haystacks rose to a staggering $97 million, and including the auction house commission, to $110.747 million. This is 44 times more than the previous sale price.

“Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” by Pablo Picasso. 1932

The painting, previously owned by renowned collector, writer Frances Brody, purchased in May 2010 at Christie’s for $106.5 million. The new buyer wished to remain anonymous.

Pablo Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust the most expensive piece of art ever sold. The Christie’s auction house held an auction in New York on May 4, where the canvas, painted by the famous artist in 1932, bought for 106 million 445 thousand dollars. According to the boldest forecasts of experts, Christie’s hoped to receive no more than $ 80 million for “Nude”, but there were plenty of people who wanted to buy the painting.

The previous record stood for less than three months. In February, Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man sculpture sold for $104.3 million in London.

“Boy with a pipe” by Pablo Picasso. 1905

The painting was sold at Sotheby’s in May 2004 for $104.2 million. Italian businessman Guido Barilla became the new owner

Today it headed by Pablo Picasso’s painting Boy with a Pipe. In 2004, it sold at Sotheby’s for $104,168,000. Picasso painted The Boy in 1905. The picture seen by Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a German industrialist, the composer’s son. In 1910 he bought the painting. And in 1950, the portrait passed into the hands of the then US Ambassador to England, John Whitney, for $30,000. Since then, the price has increased many times over.

“Suprematist composition” by Kazimir Malevich. 1916

The last masterpiece that is among the most expensive painting – Tenth place – “Suprematist composition” by Kazimir Malevich. The work, sometimes also referred to as Blue Rectangle Over Red Ray, sold at a toga in New York in 2018 for $85.8 million. The buyer has not been named.

This work by Malevich, sometimes also called Blue Rectangle Over Red Beam, valued at $70 million by Christie’s. December 1915 in Petrograd.

“Suprematist Composition” presented at all major exhibitions of Malevich’s works – from the first retrospective show in Moscow in 1919 to a traveling exhibition in Western countries in 1927. In the 1930s, this and other works of the artist were in Germany, and later began to be exhibited in museums in New York and Amsterdam. In 2008, the painting returned to Malevich’s heirs. Later put up for auction at Sotheby’s, where it purchased by an unknown buyer for more than $60 million, who this time put it up for sale again.

Another notable lot of the last auction was the painting by the Dutch master Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) “View of the orphanage and the chapel in Saint-Remy” (Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle Saint-Paul de Mausole (Saint-Remy), 1889). This painting, painted by Van Gogh a year before his death, went under the hammer for $39.7 million, with an estimated value of $35-55 million.

The work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) “Girl with a pendant” (Fillette au pendentif, 1901) found its new buyer for $8.75 million (with an estimate of $8-12 million). The painting by the Frenchman Henri Matisse (1869-1954) “Odalisque with arms crossed behind his back” (Odalisque, mains dans le dos), written in Nice in 1923, sold for $14.4 million (with an estimate of $15-20 million).

Summary

Obviously, beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder – the markets objectively claim its value. Since the Renaissance, art has been created for the market, and modern auctioneers are even more trying to commodify art, that is, to turn human creativity into an expensive commodity, and they are doing quite well.

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