An index of lists of most expensive things.
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Amsterdam, Geneva, Shanghai, and Dubai. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, the holding company of François Pinault. In 2022 Christie's sold US$8.4 billion in art and luxury goods, an all-time high for any auction house. On 15 November 2017, the Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie's in New York for $450 million to Saudi Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, the highest price ever paid for a painting.
AbeBooks is an e-commerce global online marketplace with seven websites that offer books, fine art, and collectables from sellers in over 50 countries. Launched in 1996, it specialises in used, rare and out-of-print books. AbeBooks has been a subsidiary of Amazon since 2008.
Brownie is the nickname for a Fender Stratocaster that was used extensively by Eric Clapton during the early 1970s, most notably with Derek and the Dominos on their 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
The Pond—Moonlight is a pictorialist photograph by Edward Steichen. The photograph was made in 1904 in Mamaroneck, New York, near the home of his friend art critic Charles Caffin. The photograph features a forest across a pond, with part of the Moon appearing over the horizon in a gap in the trees. The Pond—Moonlight is an early photograph created by manually applying light-sensitive gums, giving the final print more than one color.
Heritage Auctions is an American multi-national auction house based in Dallas, Texas. Founded in 1976, Heritage is an auctioneer of numismatic collections, comics, fine art, books, luxury accessories, real estate, and memorabilia from film, music, history, and sports.
The Guennol Lioness is a 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian statue allegedly found near Baghdad, Iraq. Depicting a muscular anthropomorphic leonine-human, it sold for $57.2 million at Sotheby's auction house on December 5, 2007. The sculpture had been acquired by a private collector, Alastair Bradley Martin, in 1948 from the collection of Joseph Brummer, and had been on display at Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York City from that time to its sale in 2007. It is called "Guennol" after the Welsh name for "Martin", the name of the collector. In 1950 Edith Porada described it as a lioness "because of the feminine curves of her lower body and the absence of male organs" while conceding the possibility "that the figure represented a sexless creature".
Shot Marilyns is a series of silkscreen paintings produced in 1964 by Andy Warhol, each canvas measuring 40 inches square, and each a portrait of Marilyn Monroe.
99 Cent II Diptychon is a two-part colour photograph made by Andreas Gursky in 2001. It was based on an original photograph called 99 Cent, from 1999, sometimes called "99 cent.1999".
Julien's Auctions is a privately held auction house based in Beverly Hills, California founded in 2003 by Darren Julien and co-owned with Martin Nolan. They specialize in auctions of film memorabilia, music memorabilia, sports memorabilia, Fashion and street and contemporary art. Julien's Auctions has received attention for their auctions of various high-profile items. They have handled collections and estates from entertainers such as Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Banksy, Cher, Bob Mackie, Michael Jackson, Tompkins and Bush, Slash, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Frank Zappa, Greta Garbo, Nirvana, Hugh Hefner, Sharon Tate, Pelé, Elvis Presley, Burt Reynolds, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Sylvester Stallone, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Prince, Madonna, Olivia Newton-John, Bette Midler, Mae West, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Aretha Franklin, Janet Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Betty White, Don McLean and Fleetwood Mac. The auction house's first placement was in 2009 for the sale of one of Michael Jackson's bejeweled white gloves which sold for $420,000.
Rhein II is a colour photograph made by German visual artist Andreas Gursky in 1999. In the image, a river flows horizontally across the field of view, between flat green fields, under an overcast sky. Extraneous details such as dog walkers and a factory building were removed by the artist using digital editing.
The "Travolta dress" is a dress once owned by Diana, Princess of Wales. It was worn for the first time at a gala dinner at the White House in November 1985. It is named after the American actor John Travolta, whom the princess danced with at the dinner.
Three Studies of Lucian Freud is a 1969 oil-on-canvas triptych by the Irish-born British painter Francis Bacon, depicting artist Lucian Freud. It was sold in November 2013 for US$142.4 million, which at the time was the highest price attained at auction for a work of art when not factoring in inflation. That record was surpassed in May 2015 by Version O of Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger series.
Untitled #153 is a color photograph made by American visual artist Cindy Sherman in 1985. In 2010, a print was auctioned for $2.7 million, making it one of the most expensive photographs ever sold at that time.
Girl with Balloon is a series of stencil murals around London by the graffiti artist Banksy, started in 2002. They depict a young girl with her hand extended toward a red heart-shaped balloon carried away by the wind. The locations for this work include street murals in Shoreditch and the South bank in London on the Waterloo Bridge and other murals were around London, though none remain there.