The 50 Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold
Over the years, a select few paintings around the world, from venerable Old Masters to groundbreaking modern works, have made headlines by garnering nosebleed prices in private sales or attracting astronomical bids at auction. Below, we look at 50 of the most expensive paintings ever sold and then delve into the stories behind the top 10.
1. Salvator Mundi, 1490–1500, by Leonardo da Vinci
Sold for: $450.3 million
This painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicts Christ, wearing blue Renaissance-era robes and making the sign of the cross with one hand. In the other, he holds a crystal orb symbolizing the heavens, a reference to his role as Salvator Mundi, or “Savior of the World.”
Over the years, the painting had been lost, rediscovered and restored multiple times. As a result, its attribution as an original work entirely by Leonardo has been debated, but today it is accepted as authentic by most scholars. Most recently, the long-lost piece was purchased at a 2005 New Orleans auction for $1,150 by art dealers Robert Simon and Alexander Parish, who thought they were buying an overpainted copy. After eight years of research and conservation, it turned out to be the real thing!
In November 2017, Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Farhan bought it at auction at Christie’s in New York for $450.3 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold.
2. Interchange, 1955, by Willem de Kooning
Sold for: $300 million
This Abstract Expressionist work by Willem de Kooning, with its bold lines and shapes executed in primary colors, displays the artist’s gestural mark-making and unmistakable style.
De Kooning originally sold Interchange, also referred to as Interchanged, for $4,000 in 1955. In September 2015, the David Geffen Foundation sold it to Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin for a then-record $300 million. The painting is now on loan at the Art Institute of Chicago.
3. The Card Players, 1892–96, by Paul Cézanne
Sold for: $250 million
This series of five paintings, depicting men playing cards at a table in different arrangements, belongs to Paul Cézanne’s final period, spanning the 1890s and early 1900s. Based on figural studies of local farmhands, “The Card Players” are among the Postimpressionist’s best-known works.
In 2011, art collector George Embiricos sold one painting in the series to the royal family of Qatar for an estimated $250 million, at the time a record price for a painting.
4. Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?), 1892, by Paul Gauguin
Sold for: $210 million
Inspired by a trip the artist took to Tahiti in the 1890s, this Postimpressionist work by Paul Gauguin depicts two Tahitian women, one in traditional and the other in European-style dress, the first partially obscuring the second. Its flat figures and bright, expressive colors are Gauguin signatures.
After loaning the painting to the Kunstmuseum Basel, in Switzerland, for nearly 50 years, the Rudolf Staechelin Family Trust sold it in 2015 to Qatar’s Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani for a lofty $210 million.
5. Number 17A, 1948, by Jackson Pollock
Sold for: $200 million
Colorful and chaotic, this oil-on-fiberboard work exemplifies Jackson Pollock’s style. The influential Abstract Expressionist created it using his signature drip technique, which he had developed just a year earlier.
Businessman and film executive David Geffen sold Number 17A in 2015 to Kenneth Griffin for $200 million, a huge price, if not as high as the $300 million Griffin paid him on the same day for de Kooning’s Interchange.
6. The Standard Bearer, 1636, by Rembrandt van Rijn
Sold for: $198 million
This self-portrait, painted in 1636, when he was just 30 years old, marks a significant milestone in Rembrandt van Rijn’s career. Inspired by the 16th-century soldiers who fought for Dutch independence during the Eighty Years’ War with Spain, The Standard Bearer shows the Dutch artist perfecting the mastery of light and shadow for which he is famous. This mastery is on full display in one of Rembrandt’s most celebrated works — The Night Watch — which was commissioned shortly after he completed this.
The Standard Bearer was privately owned for centuries, including by King George IV of Great Britain and the French branch of the Rothschild family, which sold it to the government of the Netherlands for $198 million in 2022. It’s now on view to the general public as one of the jewels of the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.
7. Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, 1964, by Andy Warhol
Sold for: $195 million
If one Andy Warhol painting could be considered an avatar of the artist, it well might be Shot Sage Blue Marilyn. Completed in 1964, it is one of a series of five works depicting the Hollywood starlet, who was an object of fascination for Warhol. Reportedly, the silkscreening process was so labor-intensive that he never again used that particular technique, making this an exceptionally rare example of his oeuvre.
Former owners of the painting include the late S.I. Newhouse, who ran the publishing empire Condé Nast. In 2022, megadealer Larry Gagosian purchased it at Christie’s New York for $195 million, the most ever paid at auction for a work of 20th-century art.
8. No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red), 1951, by Mark Rothko
Sold for: $186 million
In its expressive use of color — here large areas of violet and red separated by a band of green — Mark Rothko’s No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red) displays the characteristics of the Color Field movement within Abstract Expressionism that Rothko pioneered.
In 2014, Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the painting for $186 million, among the highest prices ever paid for a Rothko painting.
9. Wasserschlangen II (Water Serpents II), 1907, by Gustav Klimt
Sold for: $183.8 million
Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s fascination with the female form is beautifully evident in this oil painting, completed in 1907. A prime example of the boundary-pushing work Klimt produced as part of the Vienna Secession movement, it shows four nude water nymphs floating in a technicolor dreamscape. Water Serpents II was stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish collector in Austria during the Second World War and given to a Nazi filmmaker, whose descendant sold it in 2012, with half the proceeds going to the original owner’s heirs.
Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the painting in 2013 for $183.8 million, the highest price ever paid for a Gustav Klimt artwork. Rybolovlev sold it in 2015, reportedly to a private Asian collector. Since then, Water Serpents II has been shown in exhibitions at the Belvedere Museum, in Vienna, and the Van Gogh Museum, in Amsterdam.
10. Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, 1634, by Rembrandt van Rijn
Sold for: $195 million
Rembrandt created these depictions of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit a year after the couple was married. The oil paintings exhibit the meticulous rendering of details emblematic of the Old Masters portraits. Christie’s in New York oversaw the private sale of the two portraits in February 2016 to the French and Dutch states. French acquisition laws required that the paintings be owned separately, but the countries agreed that the works would always be exhibited together, at either the Louvre or the Rijksmuseum. The sale, the first ever to involve a joint acquisition, totaled $195 million.
These paintings are just the top tier of works that have changed hands for astounding prices. For more inspiring art by iconic artists, from Old Masters to contemporary innovators, see our wide selection of art on 1stDibs.
Updated January 2025.
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