Gauguin’s Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) is The Most Expensive Painting Ever ($300 Million)

 The French Post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin, travelled to Tahiti for the first time in 1891, with the purpose to find a "primitive" culture and an edenic paradise.
However. he soon discovered that due to colonization, Tahiti was not as he had imagined and that near two-thirds of the indigenous had deceased as a consequence of European-brought diseases.

 Despite this unexpected wipe out of Tahiti's "primitive" culture, Gauguin painted several portraits of native women, either naked, dressed in traditional Tahitian clothes, or dressed in Western-style missionary dresses, as is the case of the rear figure in When Will You Marry?

 Painted in 1892, Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry? depicts two Tahitian native women, one dressed in a traditional Tahitian dress, and the other one in the back showing a serious expression on her face and wearing a mission dress.

 The painting was on loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland for nearly fifty years by its previous owner, Switzerland-based collector Rudolf Staechelin.

 According to news, the painting was acquired by the Royal Family of Qatar, the same buyers of Cézanne's "The Card Players" in 2012, for €263.3 million / $300 million.
Being true, it's expected to be on display at the Qatar Museum starting in 2016.

 Until then painting will still be on display at a special Gauguin exhibition opening this month in Basel at the Beyeler Foundation, after wich will travel to the Reina Sofía museum in Madrid and the Phillips Collection in Washington. The buyer will take ownership next January, Mr. Staechelin said.

Paul Cézanne's "The Boy in the Red Waistcoat" found in Serbia

A stolen Paul Cézanne's painting was recovered during an operation coordinated between Swiss authorities and officers from Serbia's Anti-Organised Crime Unit.
The painting in question is "The Boy in the Red Vest"(also known as The Boy in a Red Waistcoat) or “Jeune garçon au gilet rouge,” an Oil on canvas (79.5 x 64 cm) painted ca. 1888/90 and worth €83 million. Three other versions of the painting are in museums in the US.

Three elements connected to the theft were arrested in Belgrade and in the southern town of Cacek. The alleged leader of the gang, Ivan Pekovic, was caught in a car park after a car chase through the streets of Belgrade. The gang was also found in possession of a substantial collection of firearms and more than €1.2 million in cash.

The painting was stolen February 2008, when the thieves, speaking German with Slav accent, burst into the Foundation E. G. Bührle Collection, ordering the staff to lie down on the floor while they took the Cezanne and three other masterpieces: Dega's "Place de la Concorde," Monet's "Poppy field at Vetheuil" and Van Gogh's "Blossoming Chestnut Branches." With near €120 million of stolen art, it was considered one of the major art robberies in the last 20 years.

At time the Swiss police recovered the Monet and the Van Gogh in a psychiatric hospital car park soon after the robbery, but the Cezanne and the Degas disappeared without trace; with an estimated value of €8 million, Dega's "Place de la Concorde" (1875) is still missing.

This recovery of stolen artwork happens near six months after the Serbian police found two paintings by Pablo Picasso, also in Belgrade: "Tête de Cheval" (1962) and "Verre et Pichet" (1944), which had also been stolen in Switzerland only two weeks before the assault.

Art stolen in Western Europe is sometimes either smuggled through Serbia and onto Montenegro, or taken to Kosovo.

"The Card Players" by Paul Cézanne sets the highest price paid for a work of art

According to sources, the transaction took place in 2011, but only last week it was revealed that the royal family of Qatar acquired Cézanne's painting "The Card Players" for the sum of €190 million (£158 million, $250 million), setting a new world record for a work of art in both auction and direct sales, beating the previous record of €106.4 million (£88.7  million, $141 million) paid for Jackson Pollock’s “No 5, 1948” sold by David Geffen in 2006. The highest at auction belong to "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" by Pablo Picasso sold at Christie's, New York, for $106,4 million ($95 million without commissions and taxes) in 2011 to an anonymous buyer.

"The Card Players" had been in the hands of the Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos, who shortly before his death last winter, began manifesting his desire to sell it.
During the last decades he had received several generous offers, but only close to his death the painting would be finally sold to the highest bidder, the royal family of Qatar.
It has been rumored that art dealers Larry Gagosian and William Acquavella offered upward of $220 million for the painting.

With the recent purchases of Mark Rothko’s “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)” and Damien Hirst’s pill cabinet “Lullaby Spring,” Qatar is demonstrating its power to become one of the leading cultural centers in the world.
The name of Qatari king's daughter Sheikha Al Mayassa has been citted as having an important role in this subject.

A list of the most expensive paintings can be found here.