High prices for art are fetched at auctions.
Often, paintings are famous for fetching extremely high prices at famous auctions such as Sotheby's and Christie's.
Compared to other industries, the prices paid for a single work of art are often so high that they make the news.
In the past, there was a sensational performance by street artist Banksy, whose work was cut into pieces by a shredder the moment it was sold.
How high were the prices at art auctions around the world?
What was the most expensive artwork ever sold?
Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvador Mundi
51.3 billion yen
Year sold: November 2017 Year of creation: 1499 - 1510
Auction house: Christie's
The most expensive painting ever sold was Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," which sold for 51.3 billion yen.
The work has been lost on numerous occasions and there were periods when it was unclear as to its whereabouts or who had possession of it.
By the time it was offered at Christie's Auctions in 2017, it was in need of extensive restoration work. Some experts specializing in Renaissance art have questioned whether "Salvator Mundi" was by Leonardo, but the work nevertheless sold for an all-time record bid of 51.3 billion yen.
The winning bidder has not been disclosed.
15 paintings that sold for more than 10 billion yen
1. Willem de Kooning, "Interchange
41.16 billion yen
Year of sale: 2015 Year of creation: 1955
Auction house: private sale
DESCRIPTION: Sold in September 2015 for approximately $300 million by Kenneth Griffin, founder of Citadel Investments, a major U.S. hedge fund management firm.
Interchange is a representative work ofAbstract Expressionism, and the work as a whole is full of dynamism.
There are no objects on the canvas, and no clear depictions of specific emotions such as "sad" or "happy.
Nevertheless, it is believed that the painting is intended to evoke a sense of dynamism and movement in the viewer.
2. Paul Cezanne, "People Playing Cards
24,080,000,000 yen
Year of sale: 2011 Year of production: 1894 - 1895
Auction house: Private sale
DESCRIPTION: Cézanne actually created five paintings on the theme of "People Playing Cards.
They are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée d'Orsay and the Courtauld Gallery, among others.
The third most expensive Cézanne painting in history was actually purchased by the Qatari royal family from the Greek shipping magnate George Embirikos.
3. Paul Gauguin, "When Will You Marry?
25.2 billion.
Year of sale: 2014 Year of creation: 1892
Auction house: private sale
DESCRIPTION: Gauguin firstvisitedthe island of Tahiti in 1891. Gauguin's hope was to find a paradise on earth where he could produce pure, "rustic" works, rather than the "imitation" primitivism that French painters of the time insisted on in their artistic movements.
But when he arrived in Tahiti, he quickly realized that it was not the place he had imagined. Tahiti had been colonized since the 18th century, and at least two-thirds of the island's indigenous population was said to have been killed by a plague brought in from Europe.
And in terms of culture, simplicity had disappeared. Nevertheless, Gauguin painted many pictures of native women.
They are nude, in traditional Tahitian dress, or in Western evangelism, as in "When Will You Marry? Gauguin experimented with a variety of clothing, including nudity, traditional Tahitian garb, and Westernpreacher-likeclothing, as seen in "When Will You Marry?
4. Jackson Pollock, "Number 17A
27.48 billion.
Year sold: 2015 Year produced: 1948
Auction house: private sale
DESCRIPTION: Art critic Clement Greenberg called this innovative abstract painting by Pollock an "overalls flat space." He created his paintings by laying the canvas on the floor and dripping paint, a technique known as dripping.
In fact, the purchaser of this work was Kenneth Griffon, founder of the Citadel Investment Group, which purchased de Kooning's "Interchange" mentioned earlier.
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5. Gustav Klimt, "Water Snake II
19.24 billion.
Year sold: 2013 Year created: 1904 - 1907
Auction house: Private sale
DESCRIPTION: A Russian businessman named Dmitry Rybolovlev purchased this work from a major Swiss art dealer, Yves Bouvier, in 2013 for approximately 19.2 billion yen.
The work is considered to be Klimt at his best. Klimt had to contend with censorship and restrictions due to his sensuality, and the underwater creature (a water snake) was a good metaphoric motif to convey this. In this work, the two women are represented as water snakes swimming gracefully through the water. 6.
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6. mark roscoe, No. 6 (violet, green, red)
28.03 billion yen
Year of sale: 2014 Year of creation: 1951
Auction house: private sale
DESCRIPTION: Mark Rothko is a leading American Abstract Expressionist painter, famous for his simple color-field division of large paintings.
The title of the work is mechanically numbered "No. 6," and the work conveys a strong message to the viewer through the impression of the colors alone, without any specific motifs.
It is said that Rothko was still poor and struggling at the time he created this work, before he became a successful painter.
7. rembrandt van leinPendant Portrait of Marten Suermans and Oppen Kopit
27.1 billion.
Year of sale: February 2016 Year of creation: 1634
Auction house: private sale
DESCRIPTION: The Rothschild family is a banking family that has had a major influence on European economic and, indirectly, political history for nearly 200 years.
The piece was actually owned by Baron Rothschild.
The two portraits here, which the baron decided to part with and which sparked a fire between French and Dutch museums, were hung in the baron's bedroom.
8. Pablo Picasso, "Woman of Algiers, Version 0
26.98 billion yen
Year sold: May 2015 Year of creation: 1955
Auction house: Christie's
DESCRIPTION: On May 11, 2015, Picasso's "Woman in Algiers, Version 0" sold for the highest price at the time.
It was held at Christie's, and as soon as it began, a heated telephone bidding war was said to have unfolded for a little over 11 minutes.
The preliminary estimate was $140 million (approximately 16.8 billion yen), but the bid was far higher than that.
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26.06 billion yen
Year of sale: February 2022 Year of creation: 1636
Auction house: Private sale
DESCRIPTION: Formerly owned by Elie de Rothschild, this work was purchased by the National Gallery of Amsterdam for the princely sum of 26 billion yen.
Rembrandt painted several self-portraits, and this work especially accurately depicts the texture of the artist's luxurious clothing illuminated by the ethereal light.
10. Andy WarholMarilyn, shot through.
25.66 billion yen
Year of sale: May 2022 Year of creation: 1964
Auction house: Christie's
DESCRIPTION: " Shot Sage Blue Marilyn" is one of a series of "Shot Marilyns" known for the incident in which artist Dorothy Podbar fired a pistol at a stack of works in Warhol's studio in downtown New York. It is one of the "Shot Marilyn," which has been held in a private collection for the past 50 years. The bid for the Warhol piece was nearly double the $105.4 million bid for "Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)" (1963), which was recorded at Sotheby's in 2013, symbolizing Warhol's growing reputation. The price was almost double that of Warhol's "Double Disaster" (1963) at $105.4 million.
25.64 billion.
Year sold: 2015 Year produced: 1917
Auction house: Christie's
DESCRIPTION: In 2015, Amedeo Modigliani's "Lying Nude," which had been touted as the highest-anticipated sale of a work of art in history, sold.
Modigliani left 22 paintings of reclining nudes and 13 paintings of seated nudes in his lifetime, and this painting is one of the reclining nudes.
This work is one of the largest in Modigliani's oeuvre, measuring 89.5 cm (H) x 146.7 cm (W).
24.77 billion yen
Year of sale: 2006 Year of production: 1948
Auction house: Private sale by Sotheby's
DESCRIPTION: "No. 5, 1948" is currently owned by Mexican investor David Martinez.
In November 2006, Mr. Martinez is said to have purchased it from David Geffin, founder of Geffin Records, for $140 million.
24.32 billion yen
Year of sale: 2006 Year of production: 1953
Auction house: Private sale
DESCRIPTION: Along with Jackson Pollock, de Kooning was a leader of American Abstract Expressionism, but his distinctive feature is still seen in his strong brushwork.
Born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, de Kooning was involved in Piet Mondrian's "De Stijl" movement while in the Netherlands, but in 1926 he smuggled himself to the United States. De Kooning is said to have been strongly influenced by the Armenian painter Arsir Gorky.
He also taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he was actively involved in training younger painters.
Approx. 24 billion yen
Year of sale: 2017 Year of creation: 1962
Auction house: private sale
DESCRIPTION: "Masterpiece" was one of the works Lichtenstein presented at his first solo exhibition at a Los Angeles gallery in 1963, and from the outset it shows a distinctive style that brought comic expressions into the painting.
The figure in the painting speaks the line, "This painting will be a masterpiece! which is a popular allusion to Lichtenstein's own future as a successful jockey in the Pop Art movement with Andy Warhol.
Incidentally, the original comic blurb for this work read, "Someday the suffering will pass," but Lichtenstein rewrote it this way: "15.
15 . Gustav Klimt, "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I
23.88 billion yen
Year sold: 2006 Year produced: 1907
Auction house: Private sale via Christie's
Description: This work was sold to Ronald Lauder, then president of Estee Lauder, and has been on display at Neue Galerie in New York since July of the same year.
The work, painted over a period of three years, is lavishly decorated in oil and gold leaf.
The model was Adele, wife of the banker and industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who also painted "II. Ferdinand was the patron of many other artists in addition to Klimt.
TRiCERA ART's "Resale Function
Our company, TRiCERA ART, sells contemporary art works from Japan and around the world.
The new "Resale Function" announced in April 2023 achieves the same functionality as the above-mentioned high bidding auctions. In a manner of speaking, it realizes the function as a secondary market in addition to the normal sale of artworks, which is the "primary market" where artworks are presented to the public.
In simple terms, this function allows collectors who own artworks to sell them on TRiCERA ART's online gallery, and TRiCERA ART will take care of all the troublesome work involved in the auction process, including inspection and packaging, making it easy for them to sell their artworks. In addition, free valuation is also available via the official LINE and chat, so that those who are considering selling can easily find out the market price of their artworks.
Click here for the service page
Art comes to life when it is appreciated.
This new feature of TRiCERA ART is designed to reform the structure of the art market, which until now has been divided into a primary market for galleries and a secondary market for auctions. This is a new way of distributing artworks, made possible by the fact that TRiCERA handles one of Asia's largest collections of approximately 8,000 artists from 126 countries around the world.
Some collectors who own artworks are having trouble storing them, keeping them in warehouses, or disposing of them due to changing tastes, an increase in the number of artworks they own, or space limitations. The resale function can be said to be a solution to this problem.
How to use the resale function
The following is a simple 3-step explanation of how the resale function works.
Screening of the work (confirming photos of the work, information at the time of purchase, etc.)
Send the work to TRiCERA ART
List your work in the online gallery.
First, we will ask you to provide us with information to confirm the contents of the work, and then we will assess the expected bidding price based on that information.
We are always ready to accept your inquiries through our official LINE and chat, so please feel free to contact us.
To be read in conjunction with
Which is the Most Expensive Art in History! [January 2023 Edition
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