A painting by Pablo Picasso has sold for $179.4m, earning it a place on the top ten list of the most expensive paintings ever sold – a list we first published in February this year when a piece by Gauguin became the most expensive painting to have ever been sold
A painting by Pablo Picasso entitled Women of Algiers (Version O) has set a new world record for the most expensive artwork to be sold at auction after reaching $179.4m (£115m) in New York.
In February, a painting by Paul Gauguin was reportedly bought for $300m (£200m), making it the most expensive painting ever sold, at auction or in a private sale. Monday night’s sale makes Picasso’s piece the third most expensive painting to have ever been sold.
The New York Times reported that Gauguin’s painting of two Tahitian women, Nafea Faa Ipoipo? (When Will You Marry?), is believed to have been purchased by a a Qatari buyer from a Swiss private collection.
Quartz report that the Picasso painting was last sold in 1997 to the seller, who put it up for auction on Monday night, for $31.9m and has appreciated by $147.5m in the past 18 years.
So how do these recent sales compare to other pricey paintings that have reportedly sold for millions of dollars?
Previous to the February sale of Gauguin’s painting (When Will You Marry Me?), the most expensive painting to have been sold was Paul Cézanne’s The Card Players, which was snapped up by the Qatari royal family in 2011 for a rumoured $250m – adjusted for inflation that’s $263.1m in today’s money.
Fourth highest on the list is Jackson Pollock’s No. 5, 1948, which sold for about $140m at a private auction at Sotheby’s according to a New York Times article.
Woman III by Willam de Kooning reached around $137.5m when it was sold to hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen privately in 2006. Cohen also snapped up Le Rêve, a painting by Pablo Picasso, in 2013 for $155m – although once adjusted for inflation it falls just below Woman III in the list of the most expensive paintings ever sold, at $157.5m.
