Van Gogh’s $82.5M Painting: 7 Wild Facts From May 15, 1990
The Van Gogh Portrait of Dr. Gachet auction on May 15, 1990 detonated the art market in under three minutes. Christie’s New York chairman Christopher Burge opened the bidding at $20 million and slammed his gavel down at a final hammer price of $75 million — $82.5 million with the buyer’s premium — making it the most expensive painting ever sold at the time. Then the painting vanished. It has not been seen in public since.
The $82.5 Million Hammer Drop That Broke the Art Market
The room at Christie’s Rockefeller Center auction house held its breath. Three telephone bidders pushed the price past $50 million in the first ninety seconds. By the two-minute mark only two bidders remained on the line. At $74 million, dealer Hideto Kobayashi — bidding for an undisclosed Japanese client — placed the winning offer. Christopher Burge brought the gavel down to a standing ovation that, in retrospect, was the cocktail-party noise of a financial bubble at its absolute peak.
Adjusted for inflation, $82.5 million in 1990 dollars is roughly $200 million today. The price beat the previous record — set by Van Gogh’s own Irises at $53.9 million in 1987 — by more than 50 percent in a single afternoon. Within forty-eight hours Kobayashi would bid again on behalf of the same client, paying $78.1 million for Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette. Two auction records inside one week. One man. One checkbook.
