2. PAINTINGS 7-5
7. Irises
Artist: Vincent Van Gogh
Price tag: $49,000,000
Purchased: Sotheby's, New York (November 11th, 1987)
Get used to seeing this guy's name, too. Not to reveal too much prematurely, but Van Gogh has got three of the top ten most expensive paintings on our list. And he couldn't give his work away when he was alive. Don't you just love irony?
Irises is one of a series of paintings of the same subject, with which he was mildly obsessed. But this was par for the course for Vincent, who did nothing but obsess.
Artist: Picasso
Price tag: $49,500,000
Purchased: Sotheby's, New York (November 10th, 1999)
The woman seated in the garden was actually the artist's mistress from the pre-war period, Dora Maar. The painting's subject is, as usual, barely recognizable as a woman, let alone a garden, and was it apparently painted entirely in one day. Which might explain a few things. Maybe the paintings are so rough and child-like because Pablo was always in such a rush. With his many mistresses, it's a wonder he had any time to paint at all.
Not that the price for his paintings suffered as a result. Think of the hourly rate! Let's say 16 hours tops to paint the thing, and a selling price of $49.5 mill . . . that's over $3,000,000 an hour! And there wasn't even an artist's union at the time. But it was actually the fine people at Sotheby's who raked in a good-sized chunk of the dough on this one, and they never so much as painted a wall.
5. Les Noces de Pierrette
Artist: Picasso
Price tag: $51,671,920
Purchased - Binoche et Godeau, Paris (November 30th, 1989)
OK, OK, we're getting a little tired of seeing this name on the list, too. Yes, five of the top ten paintings were painted by Pablo. At least Picasso was able to make a little money off his fame when he was still alive, unlike Van Gogh, who instead enjoyed the fruits of insanity, poverty, and tinitis.
The most expensive of the Picassos, "The Marriage of Pierrette" was painted in 1905. This is one of his early works from a period of impoverishment in his life. Paintings from this period generally sell for more than the later works, which are more difficult, more cubist, and more downright unrecognizable.
This painting was bought by a Japanese businessman, back when Japan still had an economy. We assume that he did not threaten to set it ablaze upon his death, as one of his compatriots may have done with an even pricier slab of canvas (see the most expensive painting of all time).
