The honor of having the most expensive painting ever sold goes to Vincent Van Gogh. We all know Van Gogh's interesting life story -- How he sold only one painting during his life, how he sliced off his own ear and sent it to a prositute, took his own life in an asylum - but the story of this painting is almost as interesting.
The #1 Most Expensive Painting of All Time is a portrait of Van Gogh's doctor, Doctor Gachet, painted in 1890. In 1990 it sold for an astonishing $82.5 Million! That alone makes it interesting -- but there is much more to the story. The painting is one of two known that Van Gogh did of Dr. Gachet. They were done at the doctor's request in an effort to treat Van Gogh's melancholia.
This painting was completed just 8 weeks before Van Gogh took his own life and remained unsold at that time. The painting subsequently passed throught the hands of several collecters before being aquired in 1938 by Nazi Supremo, Hermann Goring. After his death it was aquired by the Kramarsky family who were the ones who sold it at Christie's in 1990.
But the fun doesn't stop there.
