Why Do Works of Art Sell For Millions of Dollars?

An explanation of extraordinary values

Salvator Mundi (circa 1500) by Leonardo da Vinci. Oil on walnut wood. Louvre Abu Dhabi. Source Wikimedia Commons

The most expensive artworks ever sold reach into the hundreds-of-millions of dollars, as the list of the top five show:

• Salvator Mundi (c.1500) by Leonardo da Vinci (shown above) sold for $450.30 in 2017
• Interchange (1955) by Willem de Kooning sold for $300 in 2015
• The Card Players (1892/93) by Paul Cézanne sold for an estimated $250 in 2011
• When Will You Marry? (1892) by Paul Gauguin sold for $210 in 2014
• Number 17A (1948) by Jackson Pollock sold for $200 in 2015

It is impossible to justify how any of the works in the list above are actually worth that amount, except that, like anything that’s for sale, it all depends on how much someone is willing to pay.

When it comes to high value items like paintings, the context of the sale is key. A painting hung in a high-end gallery in London’s Mayfair or New York’s Chelsea is more likely to sell for a higher price than if it were touted in a flea market in a suburban town. This is not necessarily because the work is any better, but because the vendor has a higher status in the cultural hierarchy.