10 most expensive sold paintings

Collecting is an expensive hobby, especially if you collect masterpieces of painting. The most valuable paintings in the world cost more than some luxury cars, boats and houses. If you want to find out who are the authors of the paintings that sold for the most money, keep reading.

10. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I - Gustav Klimt


From the gold collection of the Austrian artist Klimt, the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer stands out as the most complete work of this phase, which exudes decorative lyricism. The painting was commissioned by Adele's husband, a Jewish industrialist. After the annexation of Austria, the Nazi authorities confiscated this painting and renamed it "Woman in Gold" - so that they could display it without mentioning the famous Jewish family. After almost a hundred years, the heiress managed to recover the paintings that belonged to her and in 2006 sold this expensive painting for 158 million dollars.



9. Number 5, 1948 – Jackson Pollock


Pollock was one of the abstract expressionists. Picture No. 5 from 1948 is associated with a bird's nest. The interesting thing about this painting is that during the transport to the first customer, the painting was damaged. Instead of refinishing, Pollock painted a completely new picture, which the customer commented had even greater depth and complexity than the original. In 2006, it was sold for 140 million dollars and until 2011 it was the most expensive sold painting in the world.


8. Reclining nude (Nu couché) – Amedeo Modigliani


As the successor of Picasso and Matisse, the representative of the Italian school who renewed the act of modern art with one of his most reproduced works The Reclining Act or The Red Act was Modigliani. At the beginning of the 20th century, he caused a stir when he presented a series of nude female nudes in various poses at an exhibition in Paris, which caused the police to stop the exhibition. The red nude is also the most expensive of all the nudes in this series, and it was bought by a Chinese businessman in 2015, in whose collection it is still today.




7. Algerian women (Les Femmes d'Alger) (Version O) - Pablo Picasso


The oldest of the 15 existing versions of Pablo Picasso's painting "Women of Algeria" (version O) was completed in 1955. It was sold at an auction in 2015 in New York for an incredible $179.4 million and has since been privately owned by an unnamed person. stated. Picasso started creating 15 versions of this painting, based on the painting of the same name by the painter Delacroix, a few weeks after learning that his good friend and rival, the French painter Henri Matisse, had passed away. This painting was a tribute to these two great men.


6. Double portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Opjen Coppit (Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit) - Rembrandt Harmenson van Rijn


The baroque style exuded by this double portrait set Rembrandt apart as a painter of the Amsterdam elite. This wedding picture exudes the opulence of that time and is the most expensive Barcon picture. It was owned by the Rothschild family until it was bought in 2015 by the joint fund of the Louvre from Paris and the Rijkmuseum from Amsterdam for 180 million dollars. The painting dates from 1634, it is a single canvas intended to be displayed as a single painting and is a departure from Rembrandt's previous style of painting portraits.



5. Number 6 (Purple, Green and Red) – Mark Rothko


Rothko painted several works in which the greatest focus is on colors. The most popular is exactly this Number 6 - Purple, green and red. Created in 1951, he is a representative of Eastern European abstract expressionism. What is atypical of Rothko's paintings is the mysticism that permeates through uneven, hazily shaded transitions and colors. In 2014, this painting was sold for 190 million dollars to a Russian businessman in whose collection it is still today.



4. When will you get married? (Nafea faa ipoipo) – Paul Gauguin


In search of inspiration and driven by the desire to transfer pure primitive art to the canvas, Gauguin went to Tahiti. He was tired of the false primitiveness that permeated French art at the time. It is an understatement to say that Tahiti inspired him, because he painted one of the most famous pictures with a Tahitian description. He was fascinated by the Tahitian language and customs, and called his works in that language, although he never mastered it. Among the painted Tahitian women, the most famous is this one from 1892. One woman is in a primitive costume, while the other is in a modern dress. There we see the contrast between modern and primitive. The painting was purchased for $210 million and is currently in private ownership in Qatar.




3. The Card Players - Paul Cézanne


A series of five paintings on canvas created in the period after 1890. The three versions have an almost identical composition, although the canvas sizes are different in each version. Until recently, it was believed that Cézanne painted Cartaroche chronologically first on a large canvas, and then on increasingly smaller canvases. The specificity of this work of art is that it depicts dealers playing cards without a dramatic moment, completely focused on the game. The comment of one of the critics who described the painting as a "human still life" is also interesting, while some others allude to the fact that this focus depicted in the work is actually Cézanne's coexistence with painting and art. The royal family of the State of Qatar bought this painting in 2011 for $259 million, and it is still in their possession today. Other versions are in art institutions in America and England.



2. Interchange - William de Kooning


This abstract expressionism from 1955 was sold in 2015 for $300 million. It is on loan at the Art Institute of Chicago (which has about 300,000 works of art in its collection). The Loop represents a turning point in this artist's painting and his first abstract work (until then, de Kooning painted portraits). Until the middle of the 20th century, the epicenter of art was Europe. After the Second World War, New York casts Paris in the shadow and a group of artists (including de Kooning) started with a new style - abstract expressionism, which further affected the value of their art.


1. Savior of the world (Salvator Mundi) - Leonardo da Vinci


Painted between 1500-1505. The Savior of the World is a recognizable work attributed to da Vinci. Some experts believe that this painting is partially original and speculate to this day whether Leonardo was the one who actually painted this work (as more than 20 versions of this painting are known to have been painted by Leonardo's students and followers). However, this did not affect the sale in 2017, when it was bought for an incredible 450 million dollars, which makes it by far the first on the list of the most expensive art paintings of all time. The picture shows Jesus Christ blessing with his right hand, and holding a heavenly sphere in his left that does not refract light and symbolizes his role as the Savior of the world. It is currently in private ownership.

Why the Mona Lisa is not on the list

The most valuable painting in history is the "Mona Lisa" by Leonardo da Vinci, but it is not on the list because it has been declared priceless.

However, some of its numerical value can still be determined based on the value of the insurance.

In 1962, this masterpiece was insured for $100 million. When inflation is taken into account, it would be $860 million in 2021.