expensive artworks

The world’s five most expensive paintings—Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi at $450.3 million, Willem de Kooning’s Interchange at $300 million, Paul Cézanne’s The Card Players for about $250 million, Paul Gauguin’s Nafea Faa Ipoipo at $210 million, and Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A for $200 million—reveal how rarity, provenance, and prestige drive record prices. These sales raise questions about market sustainability, public access, and private ownership of cultural treasures.