Most Expensive Paintings Sold at Public Auction

About This Dataset

The highest prices ever paid for paintings at public auction (excluding private sales), led by Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi at $450.3 million in 2017. Figures are nominal US dollars at the hammer, including buyer's premium.

✨ AI Insight

Salvator Mundi is in a league of its own at $450.3M - nearly double the second-place Klimt Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which set a modern-art record at $236.4M in 2025. Below the top two, prices compress sharply into a $110M-$195M band holding six works. Christie's and Sotheby's account for every sale, and the timeline shows escalating peaks: The Scream (2012), the Picasso and Modigliani records (2015), Salvator Mundi (2017), and the Warhol and Klimt highs of 2022-2025. Old Master, Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Pop works all appear, confirming that scarcity and provenance, not era, drive the very top of the market.

Source: Wikipedia - List of Most Expensive Paintings

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Salvator Mundi - Leonardo da Vinci (2017) leads with 450 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 201 · median: 175.

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Gap in All Time: Salvator Mundi - Leonardo da Vinci (2017) is 4.1× larger than Meules - Monet (2019).