The highest price was paid for Gauguin painting ‘When Are You Getting Married’
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A colourful Paul Gauguin painting of two Tahitian girls has been sold for a record-breaking price: about $300 million, one of the highest prices which have been paid for an artwork.
The sale of the 1892 oil painting, ‘Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Are You Getting Married)’, was confirmed by the seller, Rudolf Staechelin: retired Sotheby’s executive living in Basel, Switzerland.
He owns more than 20 works in a valuable collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art through a family trust. The Gauguin painting has been on loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel for almost 50 years.
There are unconfirmed rumours that painting had been purchased by a buyer from Qatar, a tiny, oil-rich emirate. Although Mr. Staechelin said: “I don’t deny it and I don’t confirm it,”. Mr. Staechelin also declining to disclose the price.
Gauguin’s Tahiti-period paintings are among the most admired and coveted artworks of the Post-Impressionist period. This particular piece, focusing on the enigmatic interplay between two girls in a Polynesian landscape, was painted during the first of the artist’s two spells living in Tahiti.
The painting will still be on display at a special Gauguin exhibition opening this month in Basel at the Beyeler Foundation and then the collection will travel to the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid and the Phillips Collection in Washington. The buyer will take ownership next January, as Mr. Staechelin said.
Prior to this sale the most expensive price for art work has been paid by Qatar three years ago for Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players.": $259 million.
Other top most expensive paintings include:
"Three Etudes Lucian Freud" by Francis Bacon : $142 million,
"Number 5" by Jackson Pollock $140 million,
"Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer" by Gustav Klimt $135 million,
"The Scream" by Edvard Munch $ 120 million,
"Nude on a background of green leaves and bust" by Pablo Picasso $ 106 million.
| When Are You Getting Married (Nafea Faaipoipo), 1892 |
| Paul Cezanne's "The Card Players.": $259 million |
| "Three Etudes Lucian Freud" by Francis Bacon : $142 million |
| "Number 5" by Jackson Pollock $140 million |
| "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer" by Gustav Klimt $135 million |
| "The Scream" by Edvard Munch $ 120 million |
| "Nude on a background of green leaves and bust" by Pablo Picasso $ 106 million |