When we originally penned the column HISTORY’S WEALTHIEST PEOPLE AND MOST EXPENSIVE ART in 2014, it was believed that many of the records set would make the column have a sort of longevity. The record was $269.4 Million for Paul Cezanne’s “Card Players” set by the Royal Family of Qatar, so it seemed reasonable this world stand for some time. It did not. Here is the updated list for the Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold.

THE TOP 10 MOST EXPENSIVE PAINTINGS EVER SOLD [ UPDATED ]

10. Woman III by Willem deKooning (1953). Adjusted price: $159.8 Million | Original price: $137.5 Million

Painted by Willem de Kooning in 1953, Music Producer David Geffen sold this painting to Hedge Fund guru Steven A. Cohen on 18, November 2006 through Private Sale. De Kooning was an  abstract expressionist painter and Woman III is one of a series of six paintings the artist painted between 1951 and 1953 in which the central theme was a woman.  This painting was part of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art collection from late 70s to 1994 but after the revolution in 1979, it could no longer be shown because of strict rules the government had towards art what imagery art could depict. The lady was scandalous, so she she was quietly traded for a 16th century Persian manuscript.

9.No. 5, 1948, painted by Jackson Pollock (1948). Adjusted price: $162.7 Million | Original price: $140 Million

Painted by Jackson Pollock in 1948, Music Producer David Geffen sold this painting to Mexican financier David Martinez on 2 November, 2006 through Private Sale. The painting was created on fibreboard, also and measures 8’ x 4’. The paint is synthetic resin paints, a gloss enamel and the colors are grey, brown, white and yellow paint. Pollock’s work is often referred to as a “birds nest” because of the wild layering of dripped paint. No 5 It was shown in 1948 in a solo show of Pollock’s work and sold for a measly $1500.

8. “Nu Couché” by Amedeo Modigliani (1917/18). Adjusted Price: $170.4 Million | Original price: $170.4 Million

In November of 2015, Christie’s, New York auctioned this work from private seller Laura Mattioli Rossi to Chinese investor Liu Yiqian who paid using his American Express card. The painting, estimated in the region of $100 million sold for a lot more than was bargained for. The $100 million asking price is more than $30 million  above the existing record for a Modigliani painting. The work has been widely exhibited in museums throughout the world including Brussels, Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York. Modigliani had only one solo exhibit and it was shut down by the police for opening showing a nude painting. The artist spent much of his short life in poverty and was just 35 years old when he died of tuberculosis in 1920.

7.“Les Femmes d’Alger” (“Version O”) by Pablo Picasso (1955) Adjusted Price: $179.4 Million | Original price: $179.4 Million

The highest price ever paid for a painting at auction was sold through Christie’s, New York from a Private collection to former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. Les Femmes d Alger is a series of 15 paintings and numerous drawings by Picasso.The entire series of Les Femmes d’Alger was bought by huge art collectors Victor and Sally Ganz in Paris for $212,500 in June 1956. The series of paintings were an homage to an artist Picasso admired, Eugene Delacroix who had done a painting in 1834 entitled The Women of Algiers in their Apartment.  Picasso’s version was painted just weeks after artist Henri Matisse,his lifelong friend and rival, died. The oriental subject matter was a nod to both Matisse and Delacoix who had depicted languid women of the orient in harems. These series of paintings mark a high point in Picasso’s career.

6. “Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit”by Rembrandt van Rijn (1634). Adjusted Price: $180 Million | Original price: $180 Million

Philanthropist Éric de Rothschild sold the pair to the Rijksmuseum Louvre via private sale in September of 2015. The pair of paintings are wedding portraits by Rembrandt of wealthy newlyweds and unlike many portraits have always hung side by side. The size is unusual for Rembrandt as they are lifesized. The portraits were in the possession of the subjects’ heirs until their sale in 1877 to Gustave Samuel de Rothschild, a French banker.They remained together and were exhibited only once, in the Rijksmuseum in 1956 for the Rembrandt’s 350th birthday. The pair of paintings is now owned jointly in a new arrangement by the Louvre and Rijksmuseum.

5. “No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red)” by Mark Rothko (1951). Adjusted Price: $186 Million | Original price: $186 Million

Rothko was an Russian American artist of Jewish descent and is one of the most recognized of the postwar painters. He spoke Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew and learned English at 17. Rothko had a brief stint at Yale, found the school elitist and bourgeois and started his artistic career at Parsons School of Design. This painting, No 6 was sold by a winemaker in August 2014 to reclusive Russian Billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev through a Private sale orchestrated by Geneva Freeport Shipper Yves Bouvier. This painting is now tangled in a big dispute between Bouvier and Rybolovlev and is now one of the biggest cases of alleged fraud to ever hit the art market. Rybolovev spent more than $2 billion buying almost 40 works of art through Bouvier, including  Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Rothko, Gauguin, Matisse, and Rodin. The Monaco complaint alleges Bouvier fraudulently inflated invoices for some of the artwork and may have “secretly withheld part of the sale price.” The Singapore court has put Rothko’s painting No. 6 under judicial supervision and its exact whereabouts haven’t been disclosed.

4. “Number 17A” by Jackson Pollock (1948) Adjusted price: $200 Million | Original price: $200 Million

For $200 million, Billionaire hedge fund tycoon Kenneth Griffin purchased “Number 17A” from Hollywood art collector David Geffen in a private sale in the fall of 2015. Jackson Pollock’s work was featured in a 1949 Life magazine article that helped make him a household name, and this painting is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago as of September 2015. Kenneth Griffin has been a trustee there since 2004 and helped build the museum’s Modern wing.  Mr Griffin who has a net worth of $5.6 billion, has been garnering great attention with his art, real estate and philanthropic efforts. He even donated $40 million to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in December, which is single-handedly one of the largest gifts in the institution’s 85-year history.

3. “The Card Players” by Paul Cézanne (1892-93). Adjusted price: $269.4 Million | Original price: $259 Million

This work is from a series of five oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne and was done in 1892/93. Each of the five paintings depict provincial peasants immersed smoking pipes and playing cards and the male subjects have their eyes cast downward, intent on the game at hand. This was an adapted motif from 17th century dutch and french genre, which often depicted card games with rowdy, drunk gamblers in taverns. Cezanne opted for a more respectable approach, replacing them with stone-faced tradesmen in simplified settings. Greek businessman George Embricos sold it in April 2012 to the Royal Family of Qatar through Private Sale.

1. (TIE) “Nafea Faa Ipoipo” (When will you Marry?) by Paul Gauguin (1892). Adjusted price: $300 Million | Original price: $300 Million

Gauguin travelled to Tahiti for the first time in 1891 hoping to fine an Eden to create primitive art. Instead he found a island that had been ravaged by disease after being colonized. It has been suggested that the white flower tiara indicates she is seeking a husband. When Gauguin first showed these paintings of Tahitians, including When Will You Marry?, they were met with indifference. His 1893  exhibition had limited success generating some favorable reviews but very few sales. The artist placed this painting on consignment at the exhibition at a price of 1,500 francs but no one purchased it. In Feburary 2015 the family of Swiss businessman Rudolf Staechlin sold it reportedly to the Royal Family of Qatar through Private Sale.

1. (TIE) “Interchange” by Willem deKooning (1955). Adjusted price: $300 Million | Original price: $300 Million
Painted by De Kooning in 1955, Hollywood magnate David Geffen paid $20.9M for the painting at auction, a record for the artist at that time. In a private sale during the fall of 2015, Billionaire hedge funder Kenneth Griffin reportedly paid $300M for the work in a sale which matches the highest price paid for any object in history (tied with “Nafea Faa Ipoipo” by Paul Gauguin). The work is an oil on canvas and stands at 79 x 69 in. De Kooning was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands and immigrated to the United States illegally as a stowaway aboard the Argentina-bound SS Shelley in 1926. The New York Times quotes DeKooning’s work from the 1950s as “a near-volcano of raucous, nervous and uncontainable energy”.

Dropped from TOP 10: Since the column first was published, 6 of the original 10 have been supplanted. Here they are featured below. “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer” by Gustav Klimt, “Three Studies of Lucian Freud” by Francis Bacon,  “Portrait of Dr. Gachet” by Vincent Van Gogh, “La Rêve” by Pablo Picasso, “Boy with a Pipe” by Pablo Picasso and “Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Reed V. Horth and Kat Barrow-Horth are writers for ROBIN RILE FINE ART in Miami, FL. They have been private dealers, gallerists and bloggers since 1996, specializing in 20th century and contemporary masters.

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