# The record price is usually the last price > Four auction records in this archive were set by a buyer who took the object into a museum within seven years. A record price is a price the same object can never test again, and the one category where records keep changing hands is the one where the objects stay private. > The Study - 2026-09-11 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/the-record-price-is-usually-the-last-price/ ## Key points - Four auction records in this archive, set in 1970, 2002, 2007 and 2017, each ended with the object in a public museum within seven years, and in one case the museum was the bidder. None of the four objects can ever be re-offered to test the price it set. - A category record survives until a different object beats it. The Old Master record of 2002 fell to a different panel in 2017; the Faberge record of 2007 fell on 2 December 2025 to the Winter Egg, an object that has set the same record three times because it has stayed in private hands. - The dealer's margin between a saleroom record and a museum's price is visible only when the museum buys second. The Gentileschi made 1.85 million euros at the hammer in December 2017 and cost the National Gallery 3.6 million pounds by private treaty seven months later. - A multiple is the exception that explains the rule. The Thinker in the Musee Rodin garden has no price and never will, while lifetime and posthumous casts of the same figure set and reset records because there are dozens of them and they keep coming back. ## Four category records in this archive ended in a museum within seven years ## Rubens: the record buyer had already promised the picture to a museum ## The Rothschild egg: a record that a different egg took back ## Gentileschi: one year from a regional saleroom to Trafalgar Square ## Juan de Pareja: the record buyer was the museum itself ## A multiple keeps its record contestable, which is the exception that explains the rule ## What that does to the figure in the record ## Why this archive is free to read A record price sounds like a peak and is usually an exit. The four category records in this archive were each the moment the object left the price system for good, and the only records that keep moving are the ones whose objects stayed for sale. Read the word record as the word last until the object's location tells you otherwise. ## Questions **What did Rubens's Massacre of the Innocents sell for?** 45 million pounds at the hammer at Sotheby's in London on 10 July 2002, 49.5 million pounds with fees. It was then the highest auction price for any work of art in the United Kingdom and for any Old Master. Sam Fogg bid for Kenneth Thomson, and the panel has been in the Art Gallery of Ontario since 2008. **Is the Rothschild egg still the most expensive Faberge egg?** No. It held the record from 28 November 2007, when it made 8,980,500 pounds with premium at Christie's London, until 2 December 2025, when the Winter Egg sold at Christie's London for 22.8 million pounds. The Rothschild egg has been in the State Hermitage Museum since December 2014 and cannot be re-offered. **Why does a record price stop being useful once the object is in a museum?** Because the same object can never be sold again to confirm or revise it. The figure becomes a historical price at a date in a currency rather than a benchmark the object could test, and later records in the same category are set by different objects, which measure the market that year rather than the object. **Was there a buyer's premium on the 1970 Velazquez sale?** No. Christie's and Sotheby's introduced the buyer's premium in London in September 1975. The 1970 sale of Juan de Pareja was bid in guineas, stopping at 2,200,000 guineas, which is 2,310,000 pounds, and that was both the hammer and the total. ## Sources - [1] Antiques Trade Gazette, 'Rubens masterpiece joins the world record holders at 45m', report of the Sotheby's sale of 10 July 2002, naming Sam Fogg as the bidder in the room. Headline and opening paragraphs read in the in-app browser; the rest is behind a subscription wall. - [2] Art Gallery of Ontario, 'The Massacre's triumphant return', 30 November 2018, for the transfer to Toronto in 2008, the accession number and the Antwerp loan. - [3] The Moscow Times, 'Putin Gives Faberge Egg to Hermitage for 250th Anniversary', 9 December 2014. Read in full. Source for the presentation of 8 December 2014 and the quoted remark. - [4] Artnet News, 'Faberge Egg Cracks Record With $30.2 Million Haul at Auction', updated 2 December 2025. Read in full. Source for the Winter Egg's 22.8 million pound result at Christie's London, the 1994 and 2002 records it had set earlier, and the Christie's statement of a new world auction record. - [5] Mieks Faberge Eggs, '2007 Sale of the Rothschild Faberge Clock Egg', the one source consulted that separates an 8 million pound hammer from the 8,980,500 pound total. - [6] National Gallery, London, press release, 'The National Gallery acquires Artemisia Gentileschi Self Portrait', July 2018. Read in full. Source for the 3.6 million pound price and the funders. - [7] The Art Newspaper, 'Newly discovered Artemisia Gentileschi painting sells for EUR 2.4m at auction in Paris', 19 December 2017, for the Drouot hammer, total, estimate and buyers. - [8] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access API, object 437869, Velazquez, Juan de Pareja, accession 1971.86. Consulted 11 September 2026 for the credit line, dimensions and Gallery 625. - [9] National Gallery, London, Archive, NGA27/24/17/15, 'Velasquez's Juan de Pareja: The One That Got Away', Geoffrey Agnew's account of bidding for the National Gallery of Art, Washington, at the 1970 sale. - [10] Sotheby's, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, New York, 7 May 2013, sale N08987, lot 45, Le Penseur, lifetime cast of 1906 for Ralph Pulitzer, 15,285,000 dollars with premium. - [11] Musee Rodin, collection entry for The Thinker, inventory S.01295, and 'Original bronze casts', for the twelve-cast limit and the 1916 donation. - [12] Iconotheca, record for the Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo, with the Christie's result of 15 November 2017 and the current-location note.