List of most expensive paintings

This is a list of the highest known prices paid for paintings. The record payment for a work is approximately US $450.3 million for the work Salvator Mundi generally considered to be by Leonardo da Vinci, though this is disputed. The painting was sold in November 2017, through the auction house Christie's in New York City.

Background

The most famous paintings, especially old master works created before 1803, are generally owned or held by museums for viewing by patrons. Since museums rarely sell them, they are considered priceless. Guinness World Records lists Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa as having the highest insurance value for a painting. On permanent display at the Louvre in Paris, the Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million on 14 December 1962. Taking only inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$ billion in.
The earliest sale on the list below is from March 1987; with a price of £24.75 million. This sale tripled the previous record, and introduced a new era in top art sales. Before this, the highest absolute price paid for a painting was £8.1 million paid by the J. Paul Getty Museum for Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi at Christie's in London on 18 April 1985. The sale of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers was the first time a "modern" painting became the record holder. Old master paintings had previously dominated the market. In contrast, there are currently only nine pre-1875 paintings among the listed top 89, and none created between 1635 and 1874.
An exceptional case is graffiti artist David Choe, who accepted payment in shares for painting graffiti art in the headquarters of a fledgling Facebook. His shares were of limited value when he was given them, but by the time of Facebook's IPO they were valued at around $200 million.
The list is incomplete with respect to sales between private parties, as these are not always reported and, even if they are, details like the purchase price may remain secret. For example, on June 25, 2019, the American hedge fund manager J. Tomilson Hill bought a recently rediscovered Judith and Holofernes attributed to Caravaggio, two days before it would have been auctioned in Toulouse. Though the Louvre Museum had turned down the opportunity to purchase it for €100 million, the painting was estimated to sell for $110 to $170 million. The actual purchase price was not disclosed, because of a confidentiality agreement attached to the private sale. Another example is a 2019 sale of The Seated Zouave by Vincent van Gogh. According to some sources, the painting had been sold by Argentine art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier for $300 million, but the price was not confirmed by any of the parties involved.
Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol are the best-represented artists in the list. Whereas Picasso and Warhol became wealthy men, van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for in 1890, to the Belgian impressionist painter and heiress Anna Boch.
Georgia O'Keeffe holds the record for the highest price paid for a painting by a woman. On November 20, 2014 at Sotheby's, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art bought her 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 for US $44.4 million.
Among the listed top paintings listed, only seven are by non-Western artists. Five are traditional Chinese paintings by Qi Baishi, Wu Bin, Wang Meng and Xu Yang. In particular, Qi Baishi's Twelve Landscape Screens was sold for $140.8 million in 2017. The only non-Western modern artwork listed is that of the Chinese-French painter Zao Wouki's oil painting Juin-Octobre 1985, which was sold for $65 million in 2018. Also included in this list is Chinese painter Wang Shaofei's The High Sun, which was sold at an estimated price of $74 million in 2017.

List of highest prices paid

This list is ordered by consumer price index inflation-adjusted value in millions of United States dollars in. Where necessary, the price is first converted to dollars using the exchange rate at the time the painting was sold. The inflation adjustment may change as recent inflation rates are often revised. A list in another currency may be in a slightly different order due to exchange-rate fluctuations. Paintings are listed only once, i.e., for the highest price sold.

Adjusted	Original	Name	Image	Artist	Year	Date of sale	Rank at sale	Seller	Buyer	Auction house
$	$450.3	Salvator Mundi					1	Dmitry Rybolovlev	Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud	Christie's, New York
~$	~$300	Interchange			1955		1	David Geffen Foundation	Kenneth C. Griffin	Private sale
$ +	$250 +	The Card Players			1892/93		1	George Embiricos	State of Qatar	Private sale
$	$210	Nafea Faa Ipoipo			1892		2	Rudolf Staechelin heirs	State of Qatar	Private sale
~$	~$200	Number 17A			1948		4	David Geffen Foundation	Kenneth C. Griffin	Private sale
$	$183.8	Wasserschlangen II			1904–1907		2	Yves Bouvier	Dmitry Rybolovlev	Private sale
$	$186	No. 6			1951		3	Cherise Moueix	Dmitry Rybolovlev	Private sale via Yves Bouvier
$	$180	Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit			1634		7	Éric de Rothschild	Rijksmuseum and Louvre	Private sale
$	$179.4	Les Femmes d'Alger			1955		5	Private collection	Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani	Christie's, New York
$	$236.3	Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer			1914-1916		10	Estate of Leonard Lauder		Sotheby's, New York
$	$198	The Standard Bearer			1636		10	Rothschild family	Rijksmuseum	Private sale
$	$170.4	Nu couché			1917/18		9	Laura Mattioli Rossi	Liu Yiqian	Christie's, New York
$	$140	No. 5, 1948			1948		1	David Geffen	David Martinez	Private sale via Sotheby's
$	$137.5	Woman III			1953		2	David Geffen	Steven A. Cohen	Private sale via Larry Gagosian
$	$165.0	Masterpiece			1962		12	Agnes Gund	Steven A. Cohen	Private sale
$	$135	Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I			1907		1	Maria Altmann	Ronald Lauder, Neue Galerie	Private sale via Christie's
$	$195	Shot Sage Blue Marilyn			1964		11	Thomas and Doris Ammann	Larry Gagosian	Christie's, New York
$	$155	Le Rêve			1932		6	Steve Wynn	Steven A. Cohen	Private sale
$	$82.5	Portrait of Dr. Gachet			1890		1	Siegfried Kramarsky heirs	Ryoei Saito	Christie's, New York
$	$157.2	Nu couché			1917			Ezra and David Nahmad		Sotheby's, New York
$	$150	Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II			1912		10	Oprah Winfrey	Unidentified buyer in China	Private sale via Larry Gagosian
$	$142.4	Three Studies of Lucian Freud			1969		8		Elaine Wynn, ex-wife of Steve Wynn	Christie's, New York
$	$78.1	Bal du moulin de la Galette			1876		2	Betsey Whitney	Ryoei Saito	Sotheby's, New York
$	$140.8	Twelve Landscape Screens		Qi Baishi	1925					Beijing Poly Auction
$	$104.2	Garçon à la pipe			1905		3	Greentree Foundation	Guido Barilla	Sotheby's, New York
$	$149.2	Les Poseuses, Ensemble		Georges Seurat	1888		1	Paul G. Allen		Christie's, New York
$	$119.9	The Scream			1895		8	Petter Olsen	Leon Black	Sotheby's, New York
$	$120	Otahi			1893		10	Yves Bouvier	Dmitry Rybolovlev	Private sale
$	$118	Reclining Nude With Blue Cushion			1916		8	Steven A. Cohen	Dmitry Rybolovlev	Private sale via Yves Bouvier
$	$137.7	La Montagne Sainte-Victoire		Paul Cezanne	1888-1890		2	Paul G. Allen		Christie's, New York
$	$110.0	'			1958		7	Jean-Christophe Castelli	Steven A. Cohen	Private sale, estimated price
$	$106.5	Nude, Green Leaves and Bust			1932		9	Frances Lasker Brody estate	Leonard Blavatnik	Christie's, New York
$	$58 plus exchange of works	Portrait of Joseph Roulin			1889		1	Private collection, Zürich	Museum of Modern Art New York	Private sale via Thomas Ammann, Fine Art Zurich
$	$107.5	L’Homme assis au verre			1914			Yves Bouvier	Dmitry Rybolovlev	Private sale via Yves Bouvier
$	$53.9	Irises			1889		1	John Whitney Payson, son of Joan Whitney Payson	Alan Bond	Sotheby's, New York
$	$95.2	Dora Maar au Chat			1941		6	Gidwitz family	Boris Ivanishvili	Sotheby's, New York
$	$100.0	Eight Elvises			1963		10	Annibale Berlingieri	The State of Qatar	Private sale via Philippe Ségalot
$	$115	Young Girl with a Flower Basket			1905			David and Peggy Rockefeller	The Nahmad family	Christie's, New York
$	$139.3	Femme à la montre		Pablo Picasso	1932			Emily Fisher Landau's estate	Anonymous buyer	Sotheby's, New York
$ +	$105.7 +	Anna's Light			1968			DIC Corp.		Private sale
$	$105.4	Silver Car Crash			1963					Sotheby's, New York
$	$110.5	Untitled			1982			Emily and Jerry Spiegel	Yusaku Maezawa	Sotheby's, New York
$	$71.5	Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe			1889		5	heirs		Christie's, New York
$	$110.7	Meules			1890				Hasso Plattner	Sotheby's, New York
$	$117.1	Verger avec cyprès		Vincent van Gogh	1888		3	Paul G. Allen		Christie's, New York
$	$100	La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Château Noir			1904			Edsel and Eleanor Ford House	State of Qatar	Private sale
$	$76.7	Massacre of the Innocents			1611		6	an Austrian family	Kenneth Thomson	Sotheby's, London
$	$95.4	Nurse			1964					Christie's, New York
$	$86.3	Triptych, 1976			1976			Jean-Pierre Moueix heirs	Roman Abramovich	Sotheby's, New York
$	$49.3	Les Noces de Pierrette			1905		3		Tomonori Tsurumaki	Binoche et Godeau Paris
$	$80.0	'			1959		11	David Geffen	Kenneth C. Griffin	Private sale via Richard Gray
$	$85	Te Fare			1892			Yves Bouvier	Dmitry Rybolovlev	Private sale
$	$57	A Wheatfield with Cypresses			1889		6	Emil Georg Bührle's son	Walter H. Annenberg	Private sale via Steven Mazoh
$	$100	Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump			1982	2020		Peter Brant	Ken Griffin	Private sale
$	$105.7	Maternitè II		Paul Gauguin	1899		4	Paul G. Allen		Christie's, New York
$	$47.8	Yo, Picasso			1901		2	Wendell Cherry	Stavros Niarchos	Sotheby's, New York
$	$104.5	Birch Forest			1903		5	Paul G. Allen		Christie's, New York
$	$80.0	Turquoise Marilyn			1964			Stefan Edlis	Steven A. Cohen	Private sale via Larry Gagosian
$	$121.2	The Empire of Light		René Magritte	1954		1	Mica Ertegun		Christie's, New York
$	$103.4	Femme assise près d’une fenêtre		Pablo Picasso	1932					Christie's, New York
$	$70.0	Portrait of Alfonso d'Avalos with a Page		Titian	1533		10	Axa insurance company	Getty Museum	Private sale via Hervé Aaron
$	$86.9	Orange, Red, Yellow			1961			David Pincus estate		Christie's, New York
$	$80.5	Le Bassin aux Nymphéas			1919			J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller	Andrey Melnichenko	Christie's, London
$	$91.9	Chop Suey			1929			Barney A. Ebsworth estate		Christie's, New York
$	$60.5	Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier			1894		9	Whitney Family		Sotheby's, New York
$	$90.3	Portrait of an Artist			1972				Pierre Chen	Christie's, New York
$	$108.4	Lady with a Fan			1917-8				Patti Wong, on behalf of a Hong Kong buyer	Sotheby's, London
$	$84.2	Black Fire I			1961			Private Collection	Anonymous	Christie's, New York
$	$72.8	White Center			1950			David Rockefeller, Sr.	Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani	Sotheby's, New York
$	$39.7	Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers			1889		1	Helen Beatty, daughter-in-law of Chester Beatty	Yasuo Goto, Yasuda Comp./Sompo Holdings	Christie's, London
$	$88.8	Buffalo II			1964			Robert and Beatrice Mayer Estate	Alice Walton	Christie's, New York
$	$81.9	Triple Elvis			1963					Christie's, New York
$	$71.7	Green Car Crash			1963			Private collection, Zürich	Philip Niarchos	Christie's, New York
$	$81.9	No. 10			1958					Christie's, New York
$	$93.1	In This Case			1983			Giancarlo Giammetti	Private collector	Christie's, New York
$	$85.8	Suprematist Composition			1916			The Nahmad family	Anonymous	Christie's, New York
$	$80.8	Three Studies for a Portrait of John Edwards			1984			Private Collection	Anonymous	Christie's, New York.
$	$92.2	Portrait of a Young Man holding a Roundel		Sandro Botticelli				Sheldon Solow estate	Russian private collector	Sotheby's, New York
$	$81.4	Meule			1891					Christie's, New York
$	$84.7	Nymphéas en fleur			1914–1917			David and Peggy Rockefeller	Xin Li-Cohen	Christie's, New York
~$	~$75	Darmstadt Madonna			1526			Donatus, Landgrave of Hesse	Reinhold Würth	Private sale via Christoph Graf Douglas
$	$81.3	Laboureur dans un champ			1889			Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass estate		Christie's, New York
$	$84.55	Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus			1981			Hans Rasmus Astrup		Sotheby's, New York
$	$70.6	Diana and Actaeon		Titian	1556–1559			Duke of Sutherland	National Galleries of Scotland & National Gallery, London	Private sale
$	$40.7	Au Lapin Agile			1904		5	Linda de Roulet, daughter of Joan Whitney Payson	Walter H. Annenberg	Sotheby's, New York
$	$68	The Gross Clinic			1875			Thomas Jefferson University	Philadelphia Museum of Art	Private sale
$	$75.1	No 1			1954			John and Anne Marion		Sotheby's, New York
$	$38.5	Acrobate et jeune arlequin			1905		3	Roger Janssen heirs?	Mitsukoshi	Christie's, London
$	$80.8	Odalisque couchée aux magnolias			1923			David and Peggy Rockefeller	Xin Li-Cohen	Christie's, New York
$	$55.0	Femme aux Bras Croisés			1902			Chauncey McCormick heirs		Christie's, New York
$	$69.0	Nude Sitting on a Divan			1917			Halit Cıngıllıoglu		Sotheby's, New York
$	$63.5	Police Gazette			1955			David Geffen	Steven A. Cohen	Private sale via Richard Gray.
$	$85	Untitled			1982			Yusaku Maezawa	Taiwanese collector	Philips, New York
$	$71.7	Diana and Callisto		Titian	1556–1559			Duke of Sutherland	National Galleries of Scotland & National Gallery, London	Private sale
$	$74	The High Sun		Wang Shaofei	2007			Legal entity of a prominent Japanese collector family	Anonymous	Private sale
$	$70.5	Untitled			1968			Sydney M. Irmas heirs		Christie's, New York
$	$77	'		Wu Bin	1610			William Bernard Ziff Jr. heirs		Beijing Poly Auction
$	$49.5	Femme assise dans un jardin			1938			Robert Saidenberg		Sotheby's, New York
$	$70.2	Portrait of George Dyer Talking			1966					Christie's, London
$	$47.5	Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat			1890		11		Steve Wynn	Private sale via Acquavella Galleries Inc., New York
$	$69.6	'			1970			Nicola del Roscio		Christie's, New York
$	$69.6	Four Marlons			1966			WestSpiel		Christie's, New York
$	$79.45	The Empire of Lights			1961			Anne-Marie Crowet Gillon heirs		Sotheby's, London
$	$65.5	Eagle Standing on Pine Tree		Qi Baishi	1946			Liu Yiqian	Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary Co	China Guardian Auctions
$	$63.4	Men in Her Life			1962			Jose Mugrabi	Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani	Phillips de Pury & Company
$	$70.1	Contraste de formes			1913			and Stephen Kellen Foundation		Christie's, New York
$	$67.45	La Gommeuse			1901			William I. Koch		Sotheby's, New York.
$	$67.4	Buste de femme '			1938			Steve Wynn	Joseph Lau	Christie's, New York
$	$35.2	Portrait of a Halberdier		Pontormo	1537		5	Chauncey Stillman	Getty Museum	Christie's, New York
$	$66.3	L’Allée des Alyscamps			1888					Sotheby's, New York
$	$66.2	Untitled			1952			Private Collection	Anonymous	Christie's, New York
$	$66.3	Untitled XXV			1977					Christie's, New York
$	$62.1	Zhichuan Resettlement		Wang Meng	1350					Beijing Poly Auction
$	$69.2	Femme au béret et à la robe quadrillée			1937			Private collection	Harry Smith	Sotheby's, London
$	$65.1	Spring			1881			Oliver Hazard Payne heirs	Getty Museum	Christie's, New York
$	$68.9	Woman as Landscape			1955			Barney A. Ebsworth estate		Christie's, New York
$	$61.7	'			1949			City and County of Denver		Sotheby's, New York
$	$82.5	No. 7		Mark Rothko	1951			Private Collection	Laurence Escalante	Private sale
$	$71.4	Cabanes de bois parmi les oliviers et cyprès			1889			Edwin L. Cox		Christie's, New York
$	$70.35	Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas		Claude Monet	1917-1919			Private Collection, New York, United States		Sotheby's, New York
$	$65.23	Juin-Octobre 1985		Zao Wou-Ki	1985			Chang Qiu Dun		Sotheby's, Hong Kong