Defining record-breaking art sales is subjective, depending on the level of the artworks being sold. For instance, an unknown artist’s sale of a painting to the art world cannot be said to have broken any record, even if it is highly-priced. However, when a painter of great reputation sells an artwork for an outstanding amount, that would be called a record-breaking sale.
Some of the most expensive paintings in the world sold for hundreds of millions of dollars and broke records, defining what we consider valuable artwork. Read on to learn more about the record-breaking art sales of all time!
Vincent Van Gogh, Verger avec cyprès
Vincent Van Gogh moved to Arles in 1888 because he was sick and had a cough. One of his early works in Arles is a cypress orchard. He brilliantly used various pastel colors to capture the early spring blooms.
It is one of the few oil paintings of Van Gogh, which sold for $117.2 million in November 2022, part of the $1.6 billion collection of Microsoft founder Paul Allen.
Edvard Munch, The Scream
“The Scream” by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is often used as an example of early Expressionism. In the 1890s, Munch used oil, tempera, and pastel to create four different versions of the artwork.
Norwegian museums own three; the only one owned by the private owner is this pastel version from 1895. In May 2012, it was sold to American billionaire Leon Black for nearly $120 million.
La Montagne Sainte-Victoire
Paul Cezanne Paul Cézanne was born and raised in Aix-en-Provence, southern France. His flattening technique foreshadowed the rise of Cubism, and this version is one of the most spectacular still in private hands (the majority are in world-class museums).
Its price reflected its significant place in art history: 137.7 million dollars.
Pablo Picasso, Femme à la montre
Pablo Picasso’s Femme à la montre was painted in 1932. The portrait is Picasso at his best—a whimsical geometric composition in bright primary colors—and sold for an impressive $139.4 million at Sotheby’s in November 2023.
The masterpiece is Picasso’s second-highest-ever-sold work and the most expensive painting ever sold in 2023.
Qi Bashi, Twelve Landscape Screens
A collection of ink-brush panels that sold for $140.8 million in 2017 at the Beijing Poly International Auction in China. Qi Bashi is regarded as the most important contemporary Chinese painter.
His landscapes, animals, and botany-focused works were deeply rooted in Chinese art principles and devoid of Western influences.
Francis Bacon, Three Studies of Lucien Freud
The friendship between Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud was fraught with professional resentment and profound admiration. In the 1950s and 1960s, both artists created portraits of each other, but a disagreement in the middle of the 1970s ended their relationship for good.
In the 1970s, to Bacon’s dismay, the triptych Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969) was sold as three separate paintings for $142.4 million.
Georges Seurat, Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite Version)
Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version) by Georges Seurat was the most expensive piece in Paul Allen’s $1.6 billion art collection. It sold for $149.2 million.
The Pointillist piece was created in response to widespread criticism of Seurat’s masterpiece A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1866), which claimed that it was too stiff and formal to portray contemporary life accurately.
Pablo Picasso, Les Femmes d’Alger
In 1955, Picasso’s masterpiece Les Femmes d’Alger was the fifteenth and final version, titled “O.” Picasso’s colorful Cubist melange of figures and limbs, a modernist interpretation of Eugene Delacroix’s The Woman of Algiers in Their Apartment (1834), is a study in color and decadence.
Later that year, he bought La Californie, a villa in southern France. The version with the letter “O” was sold to the former Qatari Prime Minister in May 2015 for $179.4 million.
Andy Warhol, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn
In May 2022, Christie’s sold Andy Warhol’s iconic Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for $195 million. The painting is one of four in the “Shot Marilyns” series, including red, orange, blue, and turquoise versions.
The curious incident in which performer Dorothy Podber asked performer Andy Warhol for permission to shoot the works in 1964 is the source of the title.
Paul Cézanne, The Card Players
The artist’s five paintings of card players, which he had worked on about a decade earlier, in the early-to-mid 1890s. Qatar’s tiny, oil-rich nation has purchased a Paul Cézanne painting, The Card Players, for more than $250 million in 2011.
In a single stroke, the deal sets the highest price for a work of art and upends the modern art market.
Paul Gauguin, Nafea Fas Ipoipo (When Will You Marry)
This painting, whose title, “Quand te maries-tu?” in Tahitian and French means “When are you getting married?” was done by Paul Gauguin in Tahiti in 1892.
Two young Tahitian women are seen sitting in a tropical landscape. It was bought for $300 million in 2015, thus establishing it as one of the most expensive paintings in the world.
Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Mundi
The masterpiece was in the collections of British royalty, but over time, it was damaged and heavily repainted. It was restored to its former splendor and verified as the final da Vinci masterpiece after it appeared at an auction in New Orleans in 2005 and sold for $10,000 (£8,000).
Saudi Arabian Prince Badr bin Abdullah purchased the work in November 2017 at Christie’s for $450.3 million.
Disclaimer – This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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