The 200 Most Valuable Paintings in private hands

Vincent Van Gogh – Selbstbildnis mit verbundenem Ohr und Pfeife – 1889

Henri Matisse – Le Jeune Marin I – 1906

Willem de Kooning – The Time of the Fire

Gustav Klimt – Wasserschlangen II Freundinnen – 1907 – Oil on canvas – 80 x 145 cm – Private collection

·· reasoned list of the most valuable paintings in private collections ··

Not all Art masterworks are exhibited in the great museums of the world. Some of them belong to private Art collectors, a practice that has experienced a remarkable boom in recent decades, resulting in a considerable increase in the price of works by the most important artists. This list highlights the most valuable paintings still in private hands. The estimate price (justified for each of the paintings in this list) is based on many facts, including its provenance and sale history.

By G. Fernández · theartwolf.com · Created: May 2008. Last updated: February 2023

The most valuable paintings in private hands

Considerations

The intention of this list is to showcase those paintings that could realistically (though not necessarily) reach the market in the future. Therefore, some observations and exceptions should be made when talking about privately owned paintings, in the sense that not all “private collections” seem destined to end up on the art market. The most illustrative example is the Royal Collection, owned by the Queen of England. While there is still some debate about it, it is believed that most of the works of the collection (including masterpieces by Raphael, Caravaggio, Bruegel, and Rembrandt) are owned by the monarch personally. The Duke of Edinburgh once declared that the Queen was “perfectly at liberty to sell them”. However, the scenario of the Queen selling one this masterpieces (specially on the open market) seems totally implausible. Therefore, works from this collection will not appear in the following list.

Raphael Cartoons (such as this “St Paul Preaching in Athens”, shown here) are owned by the Queen of England, and can be valued at over $400 million each. However, there is virtually zero chances of watching them on the art market.

Private vs. public museums

While “privately owned” is often understood as the opposite to “museum owned”, it must be noted that many American Museums (and -to a lesser extent- some European Institutions) are actually private institutions that could sell any of their artworks if the board of directors / trustees vote for that. In fact, deaccessioning (a.k.a. sale) of artworks by these museums happen every year. So, will the Met or the MoMA be selling some of its coveted masterpieces soon? While theoretically possible, that will not be happening in the foreseen future given the strict conditions for deaccessioning of works (read what the MoMA and the Met say about this). However, there have been sales of major works by smaller museums, such as the famous “Artemis and the Stag,” sold in 2007 by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery for $28.6 million, or Asher B. Durand’s “Kindred Spirits,” sold by the New York Public Library for $35 million in 2005.

Image: Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” (shown here) or Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” could easily fetch a price between $500 million and $1 billion each if the Museum of Modern Art decided to sell them.

In Europe, the situation is equally difficult to define. While there have been notable sales by family museums / institutions (the most notable case being Gauguin’s “Nafea faa ipoipo“, which the Rudolf Staechelin Trust sold for $210 million in 2015) other private museums seem not to contemplate selling their most valuable works. Take the Fondation Beyeler, whose directorate has made it clear that the core of the collection cannot be sold (see Bruno S. Frey and Stephan Meier: “Museums between Private and Public the Case of the Beyeler Museum in Basel,” 2020). This is, in short, a “gray area” in which we will try to establish as realistic an approach as possible for each case.

Open market vs restricted market

A crucial point when establishing the value of a painting is to take into account the country in which it is kept, as several territories establish limitations on the export of works of art (especially for old master’s art and ancient art), ranging from the right of first refusal by the state to a ban on the export of works considered national art treasures. Particularly noteworthy in this last group is the case of Italy, with several old master paintings in private hands, which nevertheless cannot be sold to a foreign buyer, drastically reducing their valuation. The list shown on this page contains some paintings (such as Caravaggio’s “The Conversion of St Paul” from the Odescalchi Balbi collection in Rome, or Brueghel’s “Haymaking” from the Lobkowicz collection in Prague) whose sale to a potential foreign buyer is practically impossible, but which have been included with their hypothetical open market value as they are considered of interest to the reader (all these works include a note indicating their restriction). Not included, however, are works belonging to the Doria Pamphili Collection in Rome, whose Trust has stated, in line with what has been discussed above for the Fondation Beyeler, its opposition to the sale of the most important works in the collection, which include works that would each exceed $200 million on the open market, including paintings by Velázquez, Raphael and Caravaggio.

Ranking the most valuable paintings in private hands

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