The 10 Most Expensive Works Sold at Auction in 2024

Picking up from a “subdued” 2023, this year at auction continued a downward trend for top lots under the hammer.

This year, the total price for the 100 most expensive lots sold at auction totaled just shy of $1.8 billion, compared to $2.4 billion in 2023 and $4.1 billion in 2022. Only one work—René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1954)—sold for more than $100 million, compared to two last year and six works in 2022.

Tentpole auction seasons this year offered an uneven picture. The New York May auctions, despite a nerve-racking cyberattack that brought down Christie’s website for several days, managed to sell nearly $1.4 billion worth of art. This was followed by a tepid series of London sales in June and the tentpole November auctions in New York, which reflected a persistently cautious mood: Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips collectively sold $1.3 billion worth of art—down 40% from last November, according to the New York Times. Another theme of the year was the reemergence of the Hong Kong market, which claims three of the year’s top 10 most expensive sales. Christie’s and Bonhams both opened new headquarters, and Sotheby launched a new “Maison.”

Still, some four of the 50 most expensive lots this year were by women artists—Leonora Carrington, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Joan Mitchell (with two works in the top 50)—compared to three last year. The standout sale was Carrington’s Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945), which fetched $28.5 million at Sotheby’s New York in May, a new auction record for the artist.

As the Carrington and Magritte sales attest to, this was a year in which Surrealism made a splash across the tentpole auction and several individual sales dedicated to the movement, which marks its 100th anniversary this year. This was also a year that yielded several significant auction records for artists across different categories, with the likes of Jadé Fadojutimi, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Lucy Bull, and Sarah Sze among those setting new benchmarks.

Here, we run down the top 10 lots at auction in 2024. All prices include fees.

René Magritte, L’empire des lumières, 1954

$121,160,000

A century after André Breton published his Surrealist Manifesto, René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1954) became the most expensive Surrealist artwork ever to sell at auction, achieving $121.16 million at Christie’s New York in November. The painting—hailed as the “crown jewel” of American interior designer Mica Ertegun’s collection by the auction house—shattered the artist’s auction record, previously set at Sotheby’s London in 2022 for L’empire des lumières (1961), which sold for £59.42 million ($79.24 million).

Measuring approximately 5 by 4 feet, this painting is one of the largest works in Magritte’s famed “Empire of Light” series, which comprises 27 variations on the surreal theme of juxtaposed day and night imagery. The serene scene features a house lit by a single streetlamp, its warm yellow glow reflected in a body of water below, while the sky above remains a daytime blue scattered with clouds. Slightly shrouded by silhouetted trees, the painting evokes a dreamlike contrast between light and shadow, day and night.

Another version of the Belgian artist’s “Empire of Light” series gained attention when it was showcased in the Belgian pavilion at the 1954 Venice Biennale before joining Peggy Guggenheim’s collection. Magritte subsequently expanded the theme into a series over the following 15 years to satisfy demand from eager collectors.

Ed Ruscha, Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half, 1964

$68,260,000

Ed Ruscha’s Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half (1964) broke the artist’s auction record when it sold for $68.26 million at Christie’s New York in November. The work, which smashed its $50 million estimate, was originally acquired by Texas-based oil heir Sid R. Bass in 1976 through a trade involving another piece from the same series.

Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half is the last of the large-scale paintings by Ruscha from the 1960s to be held privately. This grouping of works are celebrated for their incorporation of textual elements within minimalist landscapes.

The painting features a Standard Oil gas station along Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas. In the right-hand corner, there is a torn dime-store novel emblematic of Ruscha’s commentary on American consumerism and nostalgia. The artist discovered this particular station, which was featured in several other paintings, during his road trip from Los Angeles to visit his family in Oklahoma City. Its significance was amplified by its recent inclusion in Ruscha’s retrospective “Ed Ruscha / Now Then,” exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2023–24.

The sale eclipsed Ruscha’s previous record of $52.5 million, set in 2019 at Christie’s with Hurting the Word Radio #2 (1964).

Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (1914–17) achieved $65.5 million at Sotheby’s November evening auction in New York, following an intense 17-minute bidding war. This monumental painting, part of the French Impressionist’s renowned “Water Lilies” series, is a rare en plein air work from Monet’s Giverny garden, where he found endless inspiration in his lily pond.

The painting, measuring approximately 5 by 6.5 feet, showcases the lush, light-dappled aesthetics for which Monet is renowned and stands as one of the earliest iterations of his iconic “Water Lilies” series, comprising approximately 250 oil paintings. Departing from the more realistic depictions of the waterlily pond seen in his earlier works, Monet’s focus in this piece shifts entirely to the water’s surface, capturing its reflections and interplay of light and color.

Another earlier work from this series, Nymphéas (1897–99), made its auction debut at Christie’s Hong Kong in August, selling for HK$233.3 million (US$29.9 million) and setting a new auction record for a work by the artist in Asia.

This May, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 8-foot-wide painting Untitled (ELMAR) (1982) soared to $46.48 million at Phillips’s modern and contemporary art sale in New York.

An exploration of mythology and human struggle, the painting depicts an Icarus figure tumbling from the heavens while an archer fires two arrows in his direction. Originally acquired in 1984 by Italian anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi from Basquiat’s first dealer, Annina Nosei, the work remained in Pellizzi’s private collection for four decades.

Untitled (ELMAR) boasts a notable exhibition history, having been featured in a 1998 show commemorating the 10th anniversary of the artist’s death at Gagosian in Los Angeles, and in the artist’s retrospective at Paris’s Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2018. Basquiat’s auction record is held by Untitled (1982), which sold at Sotheby’s for $110.5 million in 2017.

Making its auction return after 44 years, René Magritte’s L’ami intime (1958) sold for $42.12 million in March at a standalone Surrealism sale held by Christie’s in London. The painting is one of the few examples of Magritte’s portraits of his signature bowler-hatted man that remains in private hands. This work depicts the back of the bowler-hatted man with a baguette and a wine glass floating behind him.

According to Christie’s, the last time the painting came to auction was in 1980, when it sold at Sotheby’s London for £90,000 ($207,000) to French dealer Georges Marci. Shortly after, the work was acquired by prominent collectors Gilbert and Lena Kaplan and was rarely seen in public. The last time the painting was exhibited was at Brussels’s Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in 1998.

The enduring appeal of Andy Warhol’s iconic “Flowers” series was reaffirmed when Flowers (1964) sold for $35.48 million at Christie’s 20th-century evening sale in May. Measuring nearly 7 feet on each side, the painting—made with acrylic, fluorescent paint, and silkscreen ink on linen—surpassed its high estimate of $30 million after approximately five minutes of bidding.

Warhol created his “Flowers” series in response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1964, juxtaposing vibrant floral imagery with the somber realities of mortality. This particular work made its auction debut, having been originally sold through Leo Castelli Gallery in New York to the collector Frederick R. Weisman. The piece features hand-painted petals and boasts a notable provenance, including ownership by Search Investment Ltd. in London, which acquired it from Thomas Ammann Fine Art in Zürich before the 1990s.

Highlighting the increasing demand for Warhol’s “Flowers,” this sale achieved more than double that of another work from the same series, which sold for $15.8 million at Christie’s in 2022. At that same auction, mega-dealer Larry Gagosian purchased Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) for $195 million—setting Warhol’s auction record and making it the most expensive artwork by an American artist ever sold under the hammer.

Claude Monet, Meules à Giverny, 1893

$34,804,500

One of Claude Monet’s final haystack paintings, Meules à Giverny (1893), debuted at auction in May, fetching $34.8 million at Sotheby’s modern evening auction. The artwork was first brought to the United States by the American landscape painter Dwight Blaney in 1895, where it was lent to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Meules à Giverny is among the last works in Monet’s “Haystacks” series of approximately 25 paintings, each capturing haystacks under different lighting and atmospheric conditions across the changing seasons.

The work is a prime example of the artist’s deep exploration of color, light, and texture. Sharon Kim, Sotheby’s deputy chairman of Impressionist and modern art, highlighted the work’s pivotal role in Monet’s evolution: “In revisiting scenes at different times of day and seasons, he carefully detailed the subtle changes in the landscape caused by the varying light and atmosphere to create a subtle and harmonious vision across his works,” she said in a statement at the time.

This sale follows the 2019 sale of Monet’s Meules (1890), another work from the series that sold at Sotheby’s for $110 million. That work marked a record for Monet at auction and is the highest auction total for an Impressionist artwork.

Vincent van Gogh, Coin de jardin avec papillons, 1887

$33,185,000

Vincent van Gogh’s Coin de jardin avec papillons (1887) sold for $33.19 million at Christie’s 20th-century evening sale in May. Van Gogh painted this work during his second year in Paris, capturing luminous flower beds in the public gardens of Asnières, a suburban town along the Seine.

The painting debuted at Christie’s New York in 2018, where it failed to sell at its Impressionist and modern art evening sale and was bought in by the auction house for $30 million.

This sale breaks the record price of a Van Gogh painting made during the artist’s Paris period, which spanned from 1886 to 1888. The previous record was held by Garden in front of the Debray Farm (1887), which sold at Sotheby’s in May 2023 for $23 million. Van Gogh’s overall auction record is for Orchard with Cypresses (1888), which sold for $117.2 million at Christie’s in November 2022.

Mark Rothko, Untitled (Yellow and Blue), 1954

$32,474,502

Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Yellow and Blue) (1954) sold for HK$252.5 million (US$32.47 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in November and marked the first Rothko oil painting to appear at auction in Asia.

First acquired by American philanthropists Paul and Bunny Mellon around 1970–71, the painting was later sold to French luxury mogul François Pinault, the billionaire owner of Christie’s. In 2013, the painting became one of many artworks acquired by the fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low. The painting last reappeared at auction in 2015, where it sold for $46.5 million at Sotheby’s New York. The identity of its most recent consignor is unknown.

One of the simpler compositions in Rothko’s oeuvre, Untitled (Yellow and Blue) features two main blocks of color (yellow on top and blue beneath) with a narrow line of yellow at the bottom of the canvas. In 2022, the painting went viral for resembling an inverted Ukrainian flag amid the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war.