The Scream ($121.4 Million)

Artist: Edvard Munch 

Date Painted: 1895 

Type: Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard 

Sold To: Leon Black
Price (Date of Sale): $119.9 Million (May 2, 2012) 

Adjusted Price Today: ~ $121.4 Million 

OP NOTE: Sorry about the wall of text - but this painting has too many interesting facts to skip. 

The original German title given to the work by Munch is Der Schrei der Natur ("The Scream of Nature"). In regard to inspiration, Munch quotes: "One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord—the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream." 

The Scream has been the target of several high-profile art thefts. In 1994, the oil, tempera, and pastel version of The Scream in the National Gallery was stolen. It was recovered several months later. In 2004, both The Scream and Madonna were stolen from the Munch Museum, and recovered two years later. 

On 12 February 1994, the same day as the opening of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, two men broke into the National Gallery and stole its version of The Scream, leaving a note reading "Thanks for the poor security".After the gallery refused to pay a ransom demand of US$1 million in March 1994, Norwegian police set up a sting operation with assistance from the British police (SO10) and the Getty Museum and the painting was recovered undamaged on 7 May 1994. Here's what's crazy though: 

They were released on appeal on legal grounds: the British agents involved in the sting operation had entered Norway under false identities. 

The 1910 tempera on board version of The Scream was stolen on 22 August 2004, during daylight hours, when masked gunmen entered the Munch Museum in Oslo and stole two paintings by Munch: Scream and Madonna. Someone even took a photo of it: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cb/Munch_Scream_Thieves_2004.jpg 

Although the paintings remained missing, six men went on trial in early 2006, variously charged with either helping to plan or participating in the robbery. Three of the men were convicted and sentenced to between four and eight years in prison in May 2006, and two of the convicted, Bjørn Hoen and Petter Tharaldsen, were also ordered to pay compensation of 750 million kroner (roughly US$117.6 million or €86.7 million) to the City of Oslo. On 31 August, 2006 - the paintings were recovered in average condition.