Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold

Here's the updated list of 10 most expensive painting ever sold either public auctions or private sales.

 
1. Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) by Paul Gauguin, 1892
    
    Sold in 2015 for $300M

 

A traditionally dressed young Tahitian woman wears a white tiare flower behind her left ear, signifying her readiness to take a lover. Behind her is a woman in high-necked mission dress. She was characterized by the gesture of her hand as a Buddhist mudra signifying threat or warn.

 

2. The Card Players by Paul Cézanne, 1892

    Sold in 2011 for $250M

 

 

 

The painting shows two male Provençal farmers smoking their pipes and playing cards. They were studious and determined on the cards in their hands.

 

3. Le Rêve (The Dream) by Pablo Picasso, 1932

     Sold in 2013 for $155M

 

 

 

The woman in the potrait is her 24-year-old mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter. It is said to have been painted in one afternoon, on January 24, 1932. It belongs to Picasso's period of distorted depictions, with its oversimplified outlines and contrasted colors resembling early Fauvism. The erotic content of the painting has been noted repeatedly, with critics pointing out that Picasso painted an erect penis, presumably symbolizing his own, in the upturned face of his model.

 

4. Three Studies of Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon, 1969

     Sold in 2013 for $142.4M

 

 

The oil painting shows Freud sitting on a cane-bottomed wooden chair within a cage, on a curved mottled-brown surface with a solid orange background. Behind each figure is a headboard of a bed, originating in a set of photographs of Freud by John Deakin which Bacon used as a reference.

 

5. No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock, 1948

    Sold in 2006 for $140M

 

 

 

The painting was done on an 8' x 4' sheet of fibreboard, with thick amounts of brown and yellow paint drizzled on top of it, forming a nest-like appearance.

 

6. Woman III by Willem de Kooning, 1953

     Sold in 2006 for $137.5M

 

 

The real meaning of the object (woman) has never been fully explained.

 

7. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt, 1907

    Sold in 2006 for $135M

 

The woman in the painting, which took three years to complete is the wife of wealthy industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who made his money in the sugar industry.

 

8. Garçon à la pipe (Boy with a Pipe) by Pablo Picasso, 1905

    Sold in 2004 for $104M

 

 

A Parisian boy wearing a wreath of flowers and holding a pipe in 1905. The boy was a teen model who hang around at Picasso's studio and voluteered to pose for this painting.

 

9.  Portrait of Dr.Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890

     Sold in 1990 for $82.5M

 

 

 

Van Gogh wrote to his sister in 1890 about the painting:

I painted a portrait of M. Gachet with an expression of melancholy, which would seem to look like a grimace to many who saw the canvas. And yet it is necessary to paint it like this, for otherwise one could not get an idea of the extent to which, in comparison with the calmness of the old portraits, there is expression in our modern heads, and passion and like a waiting for things as well as a scream. Sad and yet gentle, but clear and intelligent - this is how one ought to paint many portraits ^{(webexhibits.org/vangogh)}

 

10. Bal du moulin de la Galette (Dance at Le moulin de la Galette) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876

      Sold in 1990 for $78.1M

 

The painting portrays a popular Parisian life in one typical Sunday afternoon at Moulin de la Galette in the district of Montmartre in Paris. The Moulin de la Galette was an open-air dancehall and café that was visited by many artists living in Paris. During the late 19th century, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time in Moulin de la Galette dancing, drinking, and eating galettes into the evening.