Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold

These masterpieces fetched some huge prices on the open market.

Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold

Whether it's via auction or private sales, artworks by big-name painters have drawn record-breaking prices in recent years. Some buyers are billionaire art collectors seeking a trophy piece to hang in their mansion. Others are investors with eyes on resale profit. And then there are art museums, banking that adding a Picasso or Warhol to their gallery will bring in the crowds.

This list includes only the most expensive paintings ever sold, not the world's most valuable paintings. Though artworks are assessed for insurance purposes, there’s truly no way to put a monetary value on the "Mona Lisa," which is considered priceless.

The paintings are ranked by the original sale price in U.S. dollars. If the amounts were to be adjusted for inflation, the list would look similar with only a few pieces changing position. And the top five would remain as is.

25. Nude, Green Leaves and Bust

Artist: Pablo Picasso

Year sold: 2010

Price: $106.5 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Nude, Green Leaves and Bust

Measuring more than 5-feet tall, this bold portrait of Picasso's mistress Marie Therese-Walter may have been lost forever if not for the artist's Parisian friend and art dealer, Paul Rosenberg.

In the late 1930s, sensing the onset of World War II, he shipped the painting out of France to New York, rescuing it from Nazi looting.

The work's current owner is one of the U.K.'s wealthiest men, Sir Leonard Blavatnik, who has semi-permanently loaned the painting to London's Tate Modern gallery.

24. Flag

Artist: Jasper Johns

Year sold: 2010

Price: $110 million (estimated amount, private sale)

Bottom Line: Flag

Jasper Johns's rendering of the American flag garnered the highest price ever paid for a painting by a living artist.

In 1954, recently discharged from the U.S. Army, conceptual artist Johns had a dream about the flag that inspired him to create a series of encaustic paintings, in which melted, colored beeswax is used as paint. In the case of "Flag," the red, white and blue wax was applied to board-mounted collages of newspaper clippings.

Sounds like a simple idea, but this seminal work of the so-called "Neo-Dada" movement would go on to inspire, for better or worse, generations of pop artists.

This version of "Flag," purchased by uber collector Steven A. Cohen, was created in 1958. If you'd like to admire the original 1954 entry in the series, it hangs in New York's Museum of Modern Art.

23. Untitled

Artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat

Year sold: 2017

Price: $110.5 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Untitled

When a New York City graffiti artist's 1982 oil stick and spray painting of a skull sold at Sotheby's, it marked the highest price ever paid for an artwork created after 1980.

If you're unfamiliar with Basquiat, think of him as the original Banksy — a subversive street artist who rose from spray painting cryptic epigrams on Manhattan walls to collaborating with Andy Warhol, dating Madonna and having his work exhibited in prestigious galleries and museums.

Basquiat died of a drug overdose in 1988, but his legend lives on, especially for the buyer of "Untitled," Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. A major collector of contemporary art, he plans to someday open a museum in his home town of Chiba, Japan.

In the meantime, you'll find a dozen Basquiat pieces on display at Los Angeles's Broad museum.

22. Young Girl With a Flower Basket

Artist: Pablo Picasso

Year sold: 2018

Price: $115 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Young Girl With a Flower Basket

Brushed in 1905 during Picasso's "Rose Period," the piece was owned for many decades by his personal friend and famed writer Gertrude Stein, who once described the work as "a charming thing, a lovely thing, a perplexing thing."

Later, her estate sold it to banking billionaire David Rockefeller, who passed in 2017. A subsequent Christie's auction of 44 pieces from Rockefeller's art collection, including this Picasso, hauled in a whopping total of $646 million in one night.

The painting's new keeper is the high-profile, art-dealing Nahmad family, who loaned it to Paris's Musée d'Orsay for a Picasso exhibition that ran through Jan. 6, 2019.

21. Reclining Nude With Blue Cushion

Artist: Amedeo Modigliani

Year sold: 2012

Price: $118 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Reclining Nude With Blue Cushion

This 1917 painting by the Italian master is one of a series of nude female portraits for which he's most celebrated today. But during Modigliani's lifetime, he was the epitome of the self-destructive, starving artist — sometimes trading his paintings for drink, drug and food, and dying penniless at age 35 from tuberculosis.

"Modi" never got to see Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev fork over piles of cash for one of his canvases. And fittingly, his Père-Lachaise cemetery tombstone is etched with the epitaph "Struck down by Death at the moment of glory."

20. The Scream

Artist: Edvard Munch

Year sold: 2012

Price: $119.9 million (auction)

Bottom Line: The Scream

How is this portrait of existential angst — one of the most iconic images in art history — not number one on this list? In short, there are multiple Screams. Munch created four different versions of "Skrik" (its title in Norwegian), the most famed rendition being the 1893 oil painting on display in Oslo, Norway's National Gallery.

This work, bought by billionaire financier Leon Black, is a more colorful pastel-on-board version done in 1895. As a bonus, the piece resides in its original frame, inscribed by Munch with his own poem about the painting.

19. Otahi (Alone)

Artist: Paul Gauguin

Year sold: 2013

Price: $120 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Otahi (Alone)

Gauguin's early 1890s paintings of native Tahitian women include a forthcoming piece on this list as well as this 1893 work that fetched a pretty penny when Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev snapped it up in 2013.

Proving the trophy-art market isn't always lucrative, the Russian resold "Otahi" in 2017 for reportedly less than $50 million — totaling a loss of at least $70 million.

Ouch.

18. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Artist: Gustav Klimt

Year Sold: 2006

Price: $135 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Austrian symbolist Klimt painted this portrait ("The Lady in Gold") of a Jewish banker's wife in 1907, the apex of the artist's celebrated "Golden Phase."

The painting's proud owner is billionaire Ronald Lauder, who has it on permanent display in New York's Neue Galerie, which he co-founded.

Another portrait of Bloch-Bauer and more backstory on the paintings are ahead on this list.

17. Woman III

Artist: Willem de Kooning

Year sold: 2006

Price: $137.5 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Woman III

Painted in the early 1950s by Dutch expressionist Willem de Kooning, the piece once hung in Iran's Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. But after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the painting was deemed indecent and taken down.

Enter David Geffen, who acquired the work in 1994 and ultimately sold it to hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen, who since the early 2000s has amassed what many speculate is the world's most valuable private collection of contemporary art.

16. No. 5, 1948

Artist: Jackson Pollock

Year sold: 2006

Price: $140 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: No. 5, 1948

Drippings of brown, yellow, black and grey oil paint comprise one of Jackson Pollock's most chaotic and iconic works. For you art trivia buffs, this painting that sold in 2006 to an unknown buyer is not the original work created by Pollock in 1948 and sold a year later for $1,500 to fellow artist Alfonso A. Ossorio.

The painting's surface was damaged by a furniture moving company, so Pollock offered to repair it himself, and in the process re-painted the entire piece. Ossorio loved it, saying the do-over exhibited "a new complexity and depth of linear interplay."

Um, OK. Is there an art theory-to-English translator in the house?

15. Three Studies of Lucian Freud

Artist: Francis Bacon

Year sold: 2013

Price: $142.4 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Three Studies of Lucian Freud

In 1969, Irish artist Francis Bacon painted his friend and artistic rival Lucian Freud as a distorted figure in a cage. Not once, but thrice in separate panels as a triptych.

Bold, unsettling and strangely beautiful, the piece sold to Elaine Wynn, ex-wife of casino mogul Steve Wynn, at Christie's New York for what was then a record-setting art auction price.

14. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II

Artist: Gustav Klimt

Year sold: 2016

Price: $150 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II

Austrian artist Klimt painted this vivid, Impressionist portrait of an industrialist's wife in 1912. It was one of two formal portraits he painted of Bloch-Bauer, the first 1907 version from Klimt's so-called "Golden Phase" being the more famous of the pair.

Both pieces were looted by the Nazis during World War II, then given to Vienna's Galerie Belvedere museum after the war. Following a years-long legal battle, in 2006 the Bloch-Bauer estate regained ownership of the artworks and promptly sold them.

The buyer of this 1912 portrait was Oprah Winfrey, who in turn sold it to an unidentified buyer in China.

13. Le Rêve (The Dream)

Artist: Pablo Picasso

Year sold: 2013

Price: $155 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Le Rêve (The Dream)

The French title of Picasso's erotic 1932 painting of his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, translates to "The Dream." But for casino mogul Steve Wynn, his 12-year ownership of the artwork turned into a nightmare on one fateful Las Vegas afternoon in 2006.

Wynn had just agreed to sell his prized Picasso to billionaire Steven A. Cohen for $139 million. But first wanted to show off the painting to a few friends in his casino office. Talking excitedly about its provenance and gesturing wildly, Wynn accidentally thrust his elbow through the canvas, causing a six-inch tear that instantly devalued the painting roughly $55 million and negated the deal with Cohen. Among the stunned onlookers that day was screenwriter Nora Ephron, who recounted the scene in a must-read blog for the Huffington Post.

Cohen eventually bought the repaired canvas for a hefty sum. And one can only guess how many times he's taken a magnifying glass to the spot where Steve Wynn once punched a hole in a Picasso.

12. Nu Couché (Sur Le Côté Gauche)

Artist: Amedeo Modigliani

Year sold: 2018

Price: $157.2 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Nu Couché (Sur Le Côté Gauche)

The newest entry on the list, Italian artist Modigliani's 1917 modernist painting of a reclining nude set a new all-time Sotheby's New York auction price record when it sold to an anonymous buyer in May 2018.

It's not the artist's most famed nude, which is "Nu couché,” but it's bigger (nearly 5 feet by 3 feet) and features the entire female figure from head to toe, an anomaly in his work.

If you're unfamiliar with the artist, Netflix the 2004 bio-pic "Modigliani," starring Andy Garcia as the titular character. The historical facts aren't entirely accurate, but hey, that's Hollywood.

11. Masterpiece

Artist: Roy Lichtenstein

Year sold: 2017

Price: $165 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Masterpiece

Inspired by comic book illustrations, Roy Lichtenstein's 1962 pop art piece has been called a tongue-in-cheek joke that portended the artist's own celebrated career.

"Masterpiece" stands alongside pieces such as "Whaam!" and "Look Mickey" as his most famous works.

So it's no surprise hedge-fund billionaire and noted pop art collector Steven A. Cohen paid through the nose to acquire it.

10. Nu Couché (Reclining Nude)

Artist: Amedeo Modigliani

Year sold: 2015

Price: $170.4 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Nu Couché (Reclining Nude)

The piece, Modigliani's most famous nude, made its public debut at the artist's 1917 solo exhibition in Paris, which was promptly shut down by police over charges of obscenity.

Flash forward to a 2015 Christie's New York auction, in which it took an obscenely high bid to win the artwork for Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian, who reportedly paid with his American Express card.

9. Les Femmes d' Alger (Version O)

Artist: Pablo Picasso

Year sold: 2015

Price: $179.4 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Les Femmes d' Alger (Version O)

Part of Picasso's 1954-55 series titled "Les Femmes d'Alger" ("Women of Algiers"), this vibrant cubism tribute to artists he revered (Delacroix, Matisse, Renoir) found the master at the top of his game and fetched a pretty penny at the bang of a Christie's New York gavel.

The buyer was Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, former prime minister of Qatar.

8. Pendant Portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn

Year sold: 2015

Price: $180 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Pendant Portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit

Classic portraiture seldom fetches stratospheric sums, but when a pair of 1634 wedding portraits by Rembrandt came on the market, you better believe the Louvre and Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum (who jointly bought the artworks) stepped up with beaucoup bucks.

Art historians agree these masterful renderings of Dutch high-society newlyweds must always be displayed together, so the museums take turns hosting them.

Newly restored, they're currently hanging in the Louvre.

7. Wasserschlangen II

Artist: Gustav Klimt

Year sold: 2012

Price: $183.8 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Wasserschlangen II

Painted during Klimt's celebrated "Golden Phase," in which his use of gold leaf lent to stunning work, this serene 1904 painting features curvaceous "water serpents" adorned with shimmering stars and barnacles.

The piece was one of many high-dollar artworks (including paintings by Gauguin and Rodin) that Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev purchased from infamous Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier.

The two have since become entangled in a high-profile, ongoing fraud/art theft/money laundering/tax evasion imbroglio the art world has dubbed the "Bouvier Affair."

6. No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red)

Artist: Mark Rothko

Year sold: 2014

Price: $186 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red)

Russian-American abstract-expressionist Rothko's hallmark "multiform" paintings (two to three rectangular blocks of contrasting yet complementary colors) aren't everyone's cup of tea. But his profound influence on contemporary art cannot be denied.

The sale of "No. 6" marked a late chapter in the scandalous "Bouvier Affair" (see No. 7 on this list: "Wasserschlangen II").

5. Number 17A

Artist: Jackson Pollock

Year sold: 2015

Price: $200 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Number 17A

This 1948 "drip painting" by Pollock not only commanded an eye-popping price when David Geffen sold it to Citadel billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin, it elicited the usual cries from Pollock critics whose gripe de rigueur is "Ridiculous! Even I could paint that mess!"

Perhaps, but you didn't invent a radical technique that's been compared to putting a Miles Davis song on canvas. Nor are you arguably the most important American abstract painter of the 20th century.

"Number 17A" isn't currently on public display, but museums with noteworthy Pollock collections include New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and Los Angeles' Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

4. Nafea Faa Ipoipo

Artist: Paul Gauguin

Year sold: 2014

Price: $210 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Nafea Faa Ipoipo

French post-impressionist Gauguin's first-ever trip to Tahiti resulted in several paintings of its native women, including this 1892 oil on canvas that was met with critical indifference upon his return to France. The painting's title translates to "When Will You Marry?"

In the fall of 2014, Sheikha Al-Mayassa of Qatar said "I do" to the piece — to the tune of more than $200 million.

3. The Card Players

Artist: Paul Cézanne

Year sold: 2011

Price: estimated $250 to $300 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: The Card Players

One of five paintings in the French master's 1890s series titled "The Card Players," it features a pair of Provencal peasants seated at a table, immersed in a card game, studying their hands. Art critics have called it a "human still life." A New Yorker cartoon poked fun at the notion by depicting the subjects playing not for money, but rather fruit.

This version of "The Card Players" was purchased by the Royal Family of Qatar and is not on public display. However, you can see other paintings in the series at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia's Barnes Foundation museum and Paris' Musée d'Orsay.

2. Interchange

Artist: Willem de Kooning

Year sold: 2015

Price: $300 million (private sale)

Bottom Line: Interchange

Behold the priciest contemporary painting ever sold: Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning's famed 1955 abstract-expressionist work inspired by his surroundings while living in New York City. Does the piece speak to you? Or do you find it a colossal waste of cash?

Sold by the David Geffen Foundation and purchased by hedge fund billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin (of Citadel), the piece was part of a $500 million package that included Jackson Pollock's "Number 17A" ($300 million for the de Kooning, $200 million for the Pollock), which ranked No. 5 on this list.

Want to see "Interchange" in person? It's currently on loan and displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago.

1. Salvator Mundi

Artist: Leonardo da Vinci

Year sold: 2017

Price: $450.3 million (auction)

Bottom Line: Salvator Mundi

A circa-1500 da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ holding a crystal orb representing the "crystalline sphere" of the heavens? Ka-ching!

There are only a handful of the master's paintings that art historians generally accept as the genuine article, and "Savior of the World" is one. At the time of its record-breaking sale, it was also da Vinci's only work held in a private collection. The rest are in museums or churches.

So who won the most expensive artwork ever sold at its headline-grabbing Christie's New York auction? The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who purchased it on behalf of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism.

The current location of this Renaissance treasure is unknown. It was supposed to go on public display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, but some believe it may be on bin Salman's superyacht.