If you look at the 10 most expensive painting ever sold in auctions, 5 names dominate the list.
5. Picasso
Picasso has more paintings in the top 10 (four) than any of the others. But he is also the most modern so his painting sold for a bit less. Though the prices are still staggering.
A 1905 work called The Marriage of Pierette sold in Paris at the height of the Art Boom (1989 – 1990) to a Japanese businessman for $51 Million.
The other 3 paintings also averaged a very healthy $47 Million.
4. Cezanne
The French Father of Modern Art has only one painting in the top 10 — but it was sold at just the right time to just the right collector to fetch a cool $55 Million in New York in 1990.
The still-life, Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl, is a paint of… well, a curtain, pitcher and bowl. And there are some apples, too.
Unbelievable.
3. Rubens
The Flemish master weighs in at #3 with his Massacre of the Innocents. This picture portrays the moment that Herod ordered the killing of Jewish male children and is as different from the Cezanne as you could possible get. I won’t try to describe it — Look it up and prepare to be amazed. It is breathtaking.
Oh, Sotherby’s experts estimated in the auction listings that it would sell for $6 to 8 Million.
They were close. 
It sold for $68.4 Million.
2. Renior
Here is a painting you have probably seen. Moulin de la Galette is one of the most famous of the impressionist works — a busy, open air Paris cafe scene.
The painting sold in Sotheby’s in New York in 1990 for $78.1 Million.
Remarkably it sold just 4 days after the #1 most expensive painting — and to the same person, Japanese businessman, Ryoei Saito.
1. Van Gogh
You knew Vincent would be #1, didn’t you?
Certainly there are more valuable paintings — the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, The Last Supper — but these will never be sold. Of the “circulating” painting, no other artist even comes close to Van Gogh.
Van Gogh has 3 painting in the top 10 — Irises ($49 Million and ranked #8), Self Portrait ($65 Million and #4) and, of course the #1 Most Expensive Painting of All Time: Portrait of Doctor Gachet, which sold for an astonishing $82.5 Million in 1990!
Two last interesting notes about the #1 painting — It was once owned by Nazi Supremo, Hermann Goring and, due to the Japan economic crash of the mid-19′s is now owned by a bank.
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