The best pictures with people

Many masterpieces of painting are not only artistic values, but also the most expensive paintings of the world. The rating of these works varies regularly, on the basis of art auctions. Many art lovers are ready to give millions of dollars to buy paintings by famous masters. These masterpieces, sometimes standing whole fortunes, adorn the walls of office rooms and offices, the mansions of successful businessmen.

Sometimes pretty banal-looking paintings cost fabulous money and many private collectors buy them from each other, overpaying huge amounts. When valuing expensive paintings, inflation is not taken into account, the list does not include paintings that are the property of state museums.

The list of expensive paintings covers works from private collections, exhibited for sale in the XX - XXI centuries.

Peter Paul Rubens "Beating the Babies" was created in 1610

Painting of the most expensive in the world and describes the biblical event, when, by the decree of King Herod, the babies were exterminated. The power and greatness of the picture of the great artist make it a unique masterpiece.

The canvas was sold in 2002 at the Sotheby's auction in London. It was bought by David Thompson, for 77 million dollars.

The painting is temporarily in the National Gallery of London by the good will of the private collector David Thompson. The museum administration expects that the magnificent work of Rubens will be exhibited in the museum for another three years.

Auguste Renoir "The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette" 1876

Among the most expensive paintings of the world has a favorable position.

The work was sold for 79 million dollars to the rich industrialist from Japan, Ryoei Saito (1990). He expressed the desire to burn the picture with him after his death. However, his company because of financial problems sold a masterpiece for debts.

Claude Monet "The Pond with Water Lilies" 1899

In art auctions this picture was highly rated and is still among the most expensive paintings in the world.

The founder of impressionism, the master of the brush Claude Monet was in love with flowers, nature was his element. The water-lilies depicted were grown from Japanese seeds in his garden and express a peculiar symbiosis of French nature and Japanese subtle perception of color and color.

The canvas was sold at art auction. The cost of the masterpiece was $ 80.5 million.

Gustav Klimt "Adele Bloch - Bauer II" was founded in 1912

The painting was written five years after the creation of the Golden Adele by the artist. This work truly is worthy of the title of the masterpiece and one of the most expensive paintings of the world.

The portrait belonged to the Adele family before their arrest by the Nazis. After that, she took over the museum in Austria. Due to lengthy trials, the canvas was returned to Maria Altmann in 2006, a relative of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer.

Picasso "Nude, green leaves and bust" 1932

Work from a number of surrealistic works of the artist and has long been considered one of the most expensive paintings of the world. On the canvas, in the original way, one of the beloved great masters - Maria Theresa Walter - was transformed. Art critics her image is identified with the image of the mythical Daphne, which her mother turned into a laurel tree to save from the persecution of Apollo.

In 1936, it was sold for a record amount of $ 89.1 million. Later the work, like its first version, was taken over by American museums and is now in the US.

Canvas purchased P. Rosenberg, and in 1951 - American Sidney Brody. After the death of a private collector in 2010, the work at an art auction went under the hammer for $ 106, 5 million to an anonymous art connoisseur.

Edward Munch "Scream" (4th canvas series), 1893

The painting is one of the mysterious and original works in the history of painting. This painting occupies a priority position in the list of the most expensive paintings of the world. It shows a screaming man.

The artist often felt a desire to scream by glancing at the heavens and the environment. The cry shown in the picture is heard by everyone who looks at the picture. To express in words the feeling that the artist conveys this work is difficult. Here you can see and delight, and despair, and protest and dilemma at a time. The fourth version of the picture was first presented at the Berlin exhibition in 1893. In 2012, he was auctioned by the Norwegian Peter Olsen and was sold for $ 119, 9 million to a buyer who did not want to introduce himself. This exceptional version of Scream belongs to a private collector.

Jackson Pollock "Number 5" 1948

This picture is one of the amazing and strange works of world painting. It is also estimated as the most expensive picture of the world according to the existing standards. Pollock is a vivid representative of American abstract expressionism. The canvas represents the method of painting action.

An unusual picture he painted a spill of paint on a piece of mineralized wood wool (with a thin and long shavings). The author admits that he does not use the usual tools of the artist - an easel, a palette and brushes. He worked broken glass, pouring paint, using wooden sticks, knives of different shapes and sizes.

The picture was sold for $ 100 million to a financial dealer from Mexico, David Martinez.

Barnett Newman "The Light of Anna" 1968

The canvas is a horizontal canvas of large sizes, filled with carmine-red color. The artist-abstractionist dedicated the painting to his mother, in whose face he sees all the mothers of the world. This is a portrait of the Virgin. The representative of some of the most expensive paintings in the world is a kind of requiem of memory, grief and the question of what life and death are like, and perhaps a meeting with our dear ones after their death. To get this effect, Newman struggled for a long time with the luminous power of red, which more clearly looked on the translucent white canvas of the canvas. He applied layers of red color, which allowed to convey with the help of the picture a sense of closure and mournful state of mind. When asked why this price is, art critics answer unequivocally that one should simply see the picture with their own eyes.

In 2013, the work was exhibited at an art auction and was sold for $ 106 million.

Francis Bacon "Triptych" 1969

In 2013, the triptych became the most expensive picture of the world. At an auction organized in New York, the highest cost of a work of art was established. Triptych was evaluated and sold for $ 142, $ 5 million.

Triptych is the creative direction of the artist. The author explains the reason for adhering to this form by the fact that he sees images consistently. He in his paintings raises the subject of alienation from religion and death. Creativity Bacon was exhibited in the Hermitage.

The painting depicts the artist's friend - Lucien Freud. Lucien was also an artist. Triptych participated in the exhibition of the artist's works in the Grand Palais in 1971 - 72 years. (Paris). After it was divided into three canvases.

The former price of the canvas, which the owner of Chelsea Roman Abramovich paid, was $ 86 million.

Paul Gauguin "When is the wedding?" 1892

The work of art became the most expensive picture of the world, sold for a fabulous amount - $ 300 million. According to some sources, the work of Gauguin was bought by the Arabian Qatar Museums, which from all over the world is buying up original samples of painting for the collection of exhibits of the museums of the Arab Emirates.

A canvas from the private collection of Rudolf Stekhelin, for whose good will and in the past half-century was in the Swiss Museum of Fine Arts (Basel). The city management finds a big loss for Basel sale of the painting. The new owners of the painting were to receive in 2016, after it exhibited in the capitals of Spain and the United States.

Gauguin wrote the painting at the time when he was 44 years old and he was going to marry a young 13-year-old Tahitian woman. Gauguin dreamed of founding himself in a tropical paradise and creating a family in Tahiti. Such a marriage in those places was considered quite normal, and the girl's relatives with great joy completely organized the wedding. It was a great honor for them to get along with the white man.

The painting depicts two Tahitians, one of them in the missionary rite, which is an expression of severity or warning. Her image is more individualized. The other one, which is in the foreground, is gracefully curved and as if demonstrates its youthful beauty.

Before the product of the pictorial art, sold with the highest value on a world scale, was Paul Cesan's masterpiece of the Card Players. It was sold at a private auction in 2012 ($ 250 million), also an Arab organization.

We present the rating of the most expensive paintings in the world. And although the cost of paintings is due primarily not to the beauty, but primarily to financial investments and investments, and very profitable, nevertheless, these are the most valuable pictures in the world. Of course, the rating does not include paintings that are in museums and are a world heritage. The rating is compiled solely on the basis of auctions, where these pictures were sold.

10th place
Vincent van Gogh - Portrait of Dr. Gachet
  The painting was sold in 1990 for 82.5 million dollars. The painting actually shows the doctor of the artist. It is noteworthy that this is one of the last paintings of the great master.

9th place
Francis Bacon - "Triptych"


  The painting depicts a close associate and colleague of Bacon - Freud. It is noteworthy that two comrades periodically pose for each other. The picture was sold in 2008 for $ 86.27 million.

8th place
Mark Rothko - "Orange, red, yellow"
  The most expensive artist of recent years. The painting was written in the middle of the 20th century, in the corporate style of Rothko - a canvas of stripes.
  For such beauty in 2012, laid out already $ 86.7 million.

7 place
Gustav Klimt - "Adele Bloch-Bauer II"


  Adele was a muse of an Austrian artist. He painted several of her portraits. The cost is $ 87.9 million

6 place
Pablo Picasso - "Dora Maar with a cat"


  Portrait of his beloved Pablo Picasso. And although the artist painted in the style of abstract art - to paint in such a manner a beloved woman is quite cruel.
  Nevertheless, the picture was sold at an auction for $ 95.2 million.

5 place
Pablo Picasso - "The Boy with the Tube"


  The painting is an early creation of the famous artist. Painting performance is not in the artist's habitual and not usual manner. The more valuable it is for collectors. Therefore, in 2004, 104 million were not spared for it.

4 place


The famous Andy Warhol - "Silver Car Crash"
  Remember in the series "Brigade" - a machine from the Cosmos ornamented by Andy Warhol. "Such a machine is only mine and Michael Jackson." A great man who made everything unique to anything he touched, whether it be a machine, a bottle of beer.
  Here we are talking about silkscreen printing. On one side of the picture are pictures of car accidents, made silk screen printing, on the other - emptiness.
  The amount for which the work was sold, caused a sensation - an incredible 105.4 million dollars.

3rd place

  Pablo Picasso "Naked, green leaves and bust"


  The third picture of the great artist in the 10 most expensive paintings in the world.
  The cost is 106.5 million dollars.

20. Pablo Picasso - A Woman with Crossed Hands (1901-1902)
Sold for 55 million dollars in 2000.

19. Vincent van Gogh - Wheat Field with Cypresses (1916)
Sold for $ 57 million in 1993.

18. Kazimir Malevich - Suprematist composition (1916)
Sold for 60 million dollars in 2008.

17. Paul Cezanne - Still life with a jug and drapery (1893-1894)
Sold for 60.2 million dollars in 1999.

16. Willem de Kooning - The Police Newspaper (1955)
Sold for $ 63.5 million in 2006.

15. Vincent van Gogh - Portrait of the artist without a beard (1889)
Sold for 71.5 million dollars in 1998.

14. Andy Warhol - The Crash of the Green Machine (1963)
Sold for 71.7 million dollars in 2007.

13. Mark Rothko - The White Center (1950)
Sold for 72.8 million dollars in 2007.

12. Peter Paul Rubens - Beating the Babies (1609-1611)
Sold for 76.8 million dollars in 2002.

11. Pierre Auguste Renoir - The Ball in the Moulin de la Galette (1876)
Sold for 78.1 million dollars in 1990.

10. Jasper Jones - Falstart (1959)
Sold for 80 million dollars in 2008.

9. Claude Monet - Pond with water lilies (1919)
Sold for 80.5 million dollars in 2008.

8. Vincent van Gogh - Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890)
Sold for 82.5 million dollars in 1990.

7. Francis Bacon - Triptych (1976)
Sold for 86.3 million dollars in 2008.

6. Gustav Klimt - Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912)
Sold for $ 87.9 million in 2006.

5. Pablo Picasso - Dora Maar with a cat (1941)
Sold for 95.2 million dollars in 2006.

4. Pablo Picasso - The Boy with the Tube (1905)
Sold for 104.1 million dollars in 2004.

3. Gustav Klimt - Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907)
Sold for 135 million dollars in 2006.

2. Willem de Kooning - Woman III (1953)
Sold for 137.5 million dollars in 2006.

1. Jackson Pollock - No. 5 (1948)
Sold for $ 140 million in 2006.