Most Expensive Painting
Item: Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust
Winning Bid: $106.5 million
Sold: 2010
All it took was a little over 8 minutes to set the record price for a piece of art sold at auction. On May 4, Christie's sold Pablo Picasso's Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, a painting created in the span of a single day in 1932, for $106.5 million dollars. The painting, which is of Picasso's lover Marie-Therese Walter, was previously owned by a California philanthropist. The price beats the previous record for a piece of art, set this past February, of $104.3 million, for Giacometti's sculpture "Walking Man I." This is not nearly the first time a Picasso has sold for a record price, however. In 2004, the painting Boy with a Pipe (The Young Apprentice), sold for a then astounding $104.1 million.