Most Expensive Painting: “Nafea Faa Ipoipo”, Paul Gauguin

Price: $300,000,000

Part of an extremely valuable collection assembled by the grandfather of retired Sotheby’s executive Rudolf Staechlin, this piece was painted by famed French Impressionist Gauguin in 1892 during his first visit to Tahiti, aged 43-44, where he travelled to escape “everything that is artificial and conventional” in Europe.