The Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold

Yesterday the record for the most expensive painting ever sold was broken. At Christie's in New York Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi the hammer was knocked down on a price of $450 million. It's a lot of money, period, and even more for a painting which some doubt is by Leonardo at all. One doubter insists that Leonardo the great scientist would have refracted the light through the orb in Christ's hands. That won't bother the buyer, whose identity is unknown.

Salvator Mundi soars to the top of the list of the 75 most expensive paintings sold in the last 30 years. The recent Leonardo discovery was already on the list at no 19, having sold for $131.1 million in 2012. It now soars high above Willem De Kooning's Interchange ($300 million, sold 2015). Salvator Mundi is also the earliest work in the list. The newest is Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled, painted in 1982 ($110.5 million, 2017).

This list is based on prices at current values calculated by Wikipedia. It strays back three decades to the purchase of two Van Goghs. The big market surge came in 1989 when the record for an old master – Pontormo's Portrait of a Halberdier – was sold to the Getty Museum for what is now $68 million. The 1990s was a fallow decade in which only two painters could command high prices: Van Gogh (four entries) and Picasso (two). In 2006 the market suddenly rose for post-war work by De Kooning, Johns and Pollock. That year three paintings were sold for the equivalent of more than $160 million.

While paintings continued to go for eye-watering sums, the record held until 2011 when Cézanne’s The Card Players was sold for $259 million. The market has been at its most obscenely inflated in recent years. Seven of the top 75 sales happened in 2012, five in 2013, six in 2014, nine in 2015, five in 2016, and two this year (the other entry for 2017 is Roy Lichtenstein's Masterpiece.) The overwhelming majority of these works ended up in private hands.

The artists with the most entries hold few surprises. Picasso: 13. Van Gogh: eight. Warhol: seven. Rothko: six. De Kooning: four. Cézanne, Modigliani, Titian, Bacon: three. Johns, Monet, Lichtenstein, Klimt, Pollock, Newman: two.

Below is the list of the top, while the gallery overleaf shows some of the top 75, leading towards the most expensive in history.

1. Leonardo da Vinci: Salvator Mundi - $131.1m, sold 2012 De Kooning: Interchange - $300m, sold 2015
2. Gauguin: Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) - $300m, sold 2015
3. Cézanne: The Card Players - $259m, sold 2011
4. Pollock: Number 17A - $202m, sold 2015
5. Rothko: No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) - $188m, sold 2014
6. Rembrandt: Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit - $182m, sold 2015
7. Picasso: Les Femmes d'Alger ("Version O") - $181.2m, sold 2012
8. Modigliani: Nu Couché - $172.2m, sold 2015
9. Pollock: No. 5, 1948 - $166.3m, sold 2006
10. De Kooning: Woman III - $163.4m, sold 2006
11. Klimt: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I - $160.4m, sold 2006
12. Picasso: Le Rêve - $159.4m, sold 2013
13. Van Gogh: Portrait of Dr. Gachet - $151.2m, sold 1990
14. Klimt: Adele Bloch-Bauer II - $150m, sold 2016
15. Lichtenstein: Masterpiece - $150m, sold 2017
16. Bacon: Three Studies of Lucian Freud - $146.4m, sold 2013
17. Renoir: Bal du moulin de la Galette - $143.2m, sold 1990
18. Picasso: Garçon à la pipe - $132.1m, sold 2004
19. Munch: The Scream - $125.1m, sold 2012
20. Modigliani: Reclining Nude With Blue Cushion - $123m, sold 2012
21. Johns: Flag - $120.8m, sold 2010
22. Picasso: Nude, Green Leaves and Bust - $116.9m, sold 2010
23. Van Gogh: Portrait of Joseph Roulin - $115.9m, sold 1989
24. Van Gogh: Irises - $113.6m, sold 1987
25. Picasso: Dora Maar au Chat - $113.1m, sold 2006
26. Warhol: Eight Elvises - $111.2m, sold 2008
27. Basquiat: Untitled - $110.5m, sold 2017
28. Newman: Anna's Light - $108.7m, sold 2013
29. Warhol: Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) - $108.4m, sold 2013
30. Van Gogh: Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe - $105.1m, sold 1998
31. Cézanne: La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Château Noir - $103m, sold 2013
32. Rubens: Massacre of the Innocents - $102.1m, sold 2002
33. Lichtenstein: Nurse - $96.4m, sold 2016
34. Bacon: Triptych, 1976 - $96m, sold 2008
35. Picasso: Les Noces de Pierrette - $95.3m, sold 1905
36. Johns: False Start - $95m, sold 2006
37. Van Gogh: A Wheatfield with Cypresses - $94.5m, sold 1993
38. Picasso: Yo, Picasso - $92.5m, sold 1989
39. Warhol: Turquoise Marilyn - $92.4m, sold 2007
40. Titian: Portrait of Alfonso d'Avalos, Marquis of Vasto, in Armour with a Page - $91.1m, sold 2003
41. Rothko: Orange, Red, Yellow - $90.6m, sold 2012
42. Monet: Le Bassin aux Nymphéas - $89.6m, 2008
43. Cézanne: Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier - $87m, 1989
44. Newman: Black Fire I - $85.1m, 2014
45. Rothko: White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) - $84.1m, 200
46. Van Gogh: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers - $83.6m, 1987
47. Warhol: Triple Elvis - $82.9m, 2014
48. Warhol: Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) - $82.8m, 2007
49. Rothko: No 10 - $82.8, sold 2015
50. Monet: Meule - $81.4m, sold 2016
51. Bacon: Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards - $81.7m, 2014
52. Holbein: Darmstadt Madonna - est. $80m, 2011
53. Titian: Diana and Actaeon - $78.8m, 2009
54. Picasso: Au Lapin Agile - $78.6m, 1989
55. Eakins: The Gross Clinic - $78.5m, 2007
56. Rothko: No 1 (Royal Red and Blue) - $78.4m, 2012
57. Picasso: Acrobate et jeune arlequin - $78m, 1988
58. Picasso: Femme aux bras croisés - $76.5m, 2000
59. Modigliani: Nude Sitting on a Divan ("La Belle Romaine") $75.7m, 2010
60. De Kooning: Police Gazette - $75.4m, 2006
61. Titian: Diana and Callisto - $74.8m, 2012
62. Twombly: Untitled (New York City) - $71.3m, 2015
63. Picasso: Femme assise dans un jardin - $71.2m, 1999
64. Van Gogh: Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat - $70.9m, 1997
65. Twombly: Untitled - $70.4m, 2014
66. Warhol: Four Marlons - $70.4m, 2014
67. Qi Baishi: Eagle Standing on Pine Tree - $69.7, 2011
68. Warhol: Men in Her Life - $69.6m, 2010
69. Picasso: La Gommeuse - $68.2m, 2015
70. Picasso: Buste de femme (Femme à la résille) - $68.1m, 2015
71. Pontormo: Portrait of a Halberdier - $68m, 1989
72. Van Gogh: L’Allée des Alyscamps - $67m, 2015
73. De Kooning: Untitled XXV - $66.3m, 2016
74. Rothko: Untitled - $67m, 2016

Overleaf: browse a gallery of the world's most expensive paintings