# What is the best artwork ever sold at auction?

> Nine-figure hammer prices and a great many raised eyebrows. Money says one thing about these canvases; taste often says another.

*By YPB Team · Published August 16, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-artwork-ever-sold-at-auction*

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## Current results (0 votes)

1. **Salvator Mundi**
   Sold at Christie's New York on 15 November 2017 for 450.3 million dollars, and still argued over as a Leonardo.
2. **Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer**
   Klimt's 1914 portrait, which passed 236 million dollars at Sotheby's in 2025.
3. **Interchange**
   De Kooning's 1955 abstract landscape, sold privately in 2015 for around 300 million dollars.
4. **Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O)**
   Picasso's 1955 canvas, which set an auction record at 179.4 million dollars in 2015.
5. **Shot Sage Blue Marilyn**
   Warhol's 1964 silkscreen of Monroe, sold in 2022 for 195 million dollars.
6. **Portrait of Dr Gachet**
   Van Gogh's melancholy doctor, whose 1990 sale price stunned the market and then vanished from view.
7. **The Card Players**
   One of Cézanne's five versions, bought by Qatar in a private sale reported above 250 million dollars.
8. **No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red)**
   Rothko's 1951 canvas, sold privately in 2014 for a reported 186 million dollars.
9. **Untitled (1982)**
   Basquiat's skull painting, which took 110.5 million dollars in 2017 and reset the market for American art.
10. **Three Studies of Lucian Freud**
   Bacon's 1969 triptych of his friend and rival, sold in 2013 for 142.4 million dollars.
11. **Twelve Landscape Screens**
   Qi Baishi's 1925 set, the most expensive Chinese artwork ever sold at about 140.8 million dollars.
12. **Wasserschlangen II**
   Klimt's water serpents, sold privately in 2013 for around 183.8 million dollars.

Tags: art, paintings, auctions