The 10 Most Expensive Artworks Ever (Who Is the Number One?)

“There’s more money than good art”, as the German art dealer Hans Mayer once said. The value of good art has been on the rise for centuries. Since I have started to sell shunga I have seen a vast increase in price over the last 15 years and it’s not difficult to predict it will continue to do so as the list below underlines.

By the way, all the artists below are greatly indebted to the 18th and 19th-century Japanese artists such as Hokusai, Utamaro, Harunobu, Kunisada, Keisai Eisen and their ukiyo-e colleagues.

The following are the ten highest prizes ever paid for artworks:

10) 138 Million dollar: Willem de Kooning, ‘Woman III’, 1953

9) 165 Million dollar: Jackson Pollock, ‘Nr.5’, 1948

8) 170 Million dollar: Amedeo Modigliani, ‘Nu couché’, 1917/18

7) 179 Million dollar: Pablo Picasso, ‘Les femmes d’Alger’, 1955

6) 180 Million dollar: Rembrandt, portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, 1634

5) 186 Million dollar: Mark Rothko, ‘Nr.6 (violet, green and red)’, 1951

4) 200 Million dollar: Jackson Pollock, ‘Number 17A’, 1948

3) 260 Million dollar: Paul Cézanne, ‘The Cardplayers’, 1892/93

2) 300 Million dollar: Paul Gauguin, ‘Nafea Faa Ipoipo’, 1892

1) 300 Million dollar: Willem de Kooning, ‘Interchange’, 1955

Willem de Kooning opens and ends the list.   I recently obtained a rather unique picture of him in his studio in 1988. It has a rather amusing anecdote on how the picture was taken by the infamous Paul Blanca (1958). You can read it HERE !