Where Data Tells the Story
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With the recent record-breaking sale of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, I wondered which other artworks had fetched the highest prices. By filtering Wikipedia’s list of most expensive paintings for auction-only sales and combining it with ArtNews’ list (which includes one sculpture), I assembled this dataset of the top 20 most expensive artworks ever sold at auction.
At number one is Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, depicting Christ in Renaissance dress. While most scholars attribute the work to da Vinci, some argue that only parts were painted by the artist himself. The sale of the painting in 2017 to Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud set the standing record for the highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction.
All 20 works changed hands in the last 15 years, with Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves and Bust—the least expensive on the list—selling in 2010. With the exception of Chinese artist Qi Baishi, all pieces were sold at either Sotheby’s or Christie’s auction houses.
Picasso appears most frequently on the list with four works, followed by Modigliani and Klimt with two each. The most recently active artist represented is Jean-Michel Basquiat with his 1982 painting “Untitled (1982 Skull)”. The oldest piece is Salvator Mundi, created circa 1500.
The 20 artworks cover a broad sweep of art history, from the Renaissance through major modern movements such as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, early Modernism, Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Neo-Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Pop Art.