The Card Players (app. $259 Million)

Artist: Paul Cézanne 

Date Painted: 1892/93 

Art Style: Oil on Canvas 

Sold To: Royal Family of Qatar 

Price (Date of Sale): $259-$320 Million (April 2011) 

Adjusted Price Today: ~ $268.1 Million 

The exact price of The Card Players (even the currency of sale) is not known, with estimates from $259 million to even $320 million. 

The Card Players is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. Keep in mind though guys, the Royal Family of Qatar didn't buy the series - they bought just that one painting for ~259 million).

The series is considered by critics to be a cornerstone of Cézanne's art during the early-to-mid 1890s period, as well as a "prelude" to his final years, when he painted some of his most acclaimed work.The models for the paintings were local farmhands, some of whom worked on the Cézanne family estate, the Jas de Bouffan. Each scene is depicted as one of quiet, still concentration; the men look down at their cards rather than at each other, with the cards being perhaps their sole means of communication outside of work. One critic described the scenes as "human still life", while another speculated that the men's intense focus on their game mirrors that of the painter's absorption in his art.