The Most Expensive Auction Items Sold This Past Year

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Each year, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the top auction houses in the country, put culturally significant blue-chip art from precious art collections up for sale. This year, both auctions took place in November. According to Sotheby, sales from the Debut Breuer Auction totaled $1.7 billion — the highest auction series since 2021 — while Christie’s Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis Collection hit nearly $1 billion, according to Rehs Galleries, Inc. These are the most expensive auction items sold in 2025.

Gustav Klimt’s ‘Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer’

• Selling price: $236.4 Million 

Sotheby’s took the highest bid for the most expensive artwork sold this year. Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,” a commission for the influential Lederer family — one of the artist’s most devoted patrons — was painted by the Viennese artist between 1914 and 1916. The work was sold as part of the Leonard A. Lauder Collection.

The painting was seized by the Nazi’s during World War II and was returned to Elizabeth’s brother in 1948. In a 20-minute bidding war, the piece sold for $236.4 million, per Sotheby’s.

Van Gogh’s ‘Piles de romans parisiens et roses dans un verre’

• Selling price: $62.7 Million

Also sold at Sotheby’s, Van Gogh’s “Piles de romans parisiens et roses dans un verre,” painted in 1887, set a record for the artist’s highest priced still life. The work reflects Van Gogh’s love of books, which he described as “as sacred as the love of Rembrandt,” in a letter to his brother Theo, according to WebExhibits.org.  Van Gogh painted nine still lifes of books during his lifetime and only two remain privately owned.

Mark Rothko’s ‘No. 31 (Yellow Stripe)’

• Selling price: $62.16 Million 

The third-most-expensive auction item, “No. 31 Yellow Stripe,” painted by Mark Rothko, was sold at Christie’s. The Latvian-born artist was raised in the U.S. and became a leading figure in Abstract Expressionism. 

His compositions were filled with color, featuring glowing bands of pigment that had a meditative effect and he said that emotions were a big part of his work, a phenomenon known in the art world as “the Rothko effect.” Rothko’s most influential works were from the mid-1950s and rarely come to market.

Frida Kahlo’s ‘El Sueño (La Cama)‘

• Selling price: $55 Million  

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo painted “El sueño (La cama)” in 1940. The painting had a previous selling price of $51,000 in 1980, per Artsy. The current price for the symbolic self-portrait set a record at Sotheby’s for work by a woman artist.

Few of Kahlo’s works are available for international auction because in 1984, Mexico designated her works national artistic monuments.

Pablo Picasso’s ‘La Lecture Marie-Thérèse’

• Selling price: $45.49 Million

La Lecture was completed in 1932, considered Picasso’s most creative and prolific year, when he produced paintings exploring color, emotion and sensuality, including La Lecture Marie Thérèse.The Spanish artist approached Marie-Thérèse Walter on the streets of Paris in 1927 as she exited a department store at around eight o’clock in the evening. He introduced himself and asked if she would sit for a painting. She agreed and became the most celebrated muse in his career as an artist. Picasso said he was struck by her statuesque beauty, according to Christie’s lot essay.

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