3. PAINTINGS 4-2
4. Still Life with Curtain, Pitcher, and Bowl of Fruit
Artist: Paul Cezanne
Price tag: $60,500,000
Purchased: Sotheby's, New York (May 10th, 1999)
As you might expect from the title, this is a painting of a spatula and a shaved goat. Just kidding. Could this guy be any more prosaic? Cezanne, often called the father of modern painting, was a French artist working in the Impressionist period, but he is known as a "Post-Impressionist" for his unconventional and influential style.
Anyway, the bunch of fruit and stuff he happened to have lying around is the most recent purchase of the top ten most overpriced paintings in the world. It was purchased anonymously, which is no surprise. We'd be embarrassed, too.
3. Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe
Artist: Vincent Van Gogh
Price tag: $71,500,000
Purchased: Christie's, New York (November 19th, 1998)
As the title says, this is literally a picture of Vinnie without a beard. Van Gogh painted it for his mother the year before he died, and it was one of his last paintings (as well as his last self-portrait). Vincent decided to clean himself up a bit, not look so scruffy, and have both ears intact for this self-portrait for Mom.
That same year Vincent wrote to his brother in a little-known letter: "Dear Theo, please send more money. There just aren't enough Japanese real-estate tycoons in Europe right now, so nobody is buying my paintings. Also, Gaugin is being a pig about the rent, and I'm hearing this ringing sound all the time. Do you hear it?"
So it was clearly the beginning of the end for Vincent, and his paintings of this time are consequently considered to be his best. (You know the old adage: the crazier the artist, the better the work.)
Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Price tag: $78,100,000
Purchased: Sotheby's, New York (May 17th, 1990)
This painting was purchased by Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito, who two days earlier had paid the highest price ever for a painting (we can't tell you what it is just yet - you'll have to wait).
An ambitious showpiece of a painting, Au Moulin de la Galette exhibits an air of courtship, fun, and frivolity. Portraying two girls dancing, and painted in a style typical of Renoir's early period of Impressionism, the work was exhibited in the third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877. Despite the dappled light and diffused look of the Impressionistic style, there is a classical stability in the composition. This aspect of Renoir's work would come out more and more as he abandoned impressionism in his later paintings. One last cool thing: most of the people in the painting are Renoir's friends.
Although the artist himself thought that Au Moulin de la Galette wasn't amongst his best work, the modern day (crazed and filthy rich) art consumer apparently feels otherwise.
