The Scream being sold at Sotheby’s for $119.9 million this year.
AVID readers of this website – and it is good to know that there are many – will know that Paul Cezanne’s painting The Card Players (1892-1892) is the most expensive painting ever sold. It is believed to have been bought for $250 million from Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos by the Qatari Royal family. (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 4, 2012).
The top ten list of the most expensive paintings sold has seen several changes over the past couple of years. On the current updated list The Card Players is followed by: 2 – Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I (1907) by Gustav Klimt ($152.6 million); 3 – No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock ($140 million); 4 – Woman III (1953) by Willem de Kooning (|$137.5 million); 5 – The Scream (1895) by Edvard Munch ($119.9 million): 6 – Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) by Pablo Picasso ($106.5 million); 7 – Garcon a la pipe (1905) by Pablo Picasso ($104.2 million): 8 – Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) by Mark Rothko ($86.9 million); 9 – Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890) by Vincent van Gogh ($82.5 million); 10 – Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir ($78.1 million).