Paul Cézanne's The Card Players Shatters Records For Highest Price Ever For A Work Of Art Of More Than $250 Million in 2011

 Paul Cézanne

Medium Oil Canvas

The Card Players

When Qatar purchased Cézanne’s The Card Players for more than $250 million, in 2011 it nearly doubled the previous auction record for a work of art. The oil painting, depicting a pair of Aix-en-Provence farmhands engaged in a game of cards, is one of five works in a series by famed French post-Impressionist, Paul Cézanne. The remaining four, all believed to have been created at the turn of the 20^th century, reside in collections from the world’s most venerable fine arts institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Courtauld, the Musée d’Orsay and the Barnes Foundation. Qatar’s own Card Players acquisition puts the country’s art stash in the same line of sight.