Poker-Playing Dogs Painting Sold

Poker-Playing Dogs Painting Sold

Tuesday, 24 November 2015

What can you do with $658,000? Buy a house (outside of London)? A luxury car or two? Take a world cruise? Play secret millionaire and give it all away? Or buy a painting of a group of dogs playing cards?

One secret buyer opted for the latter and is now the proud owner of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge's famous 1894 painting Poker Game following an auction at Sotheby's in New York last week.

We shouldn't be entirely surprised that Coolidge's infamous work sold for an eye-watering amount of money as one of his other originals sold for $74,000 in 1998 while 2005 saw two of his paintings, A Bold Bluff and Waterloo, greatly exceed their estimate and fetch a combined price of $590,400.

As expensive as these painting were, it’s small change compared to the amount of money needed to get hold of the most expensive card-playing painting in the world. That honour goes to The Card Players by post-impressionist Paul Cezanne, which was bought by the Qatari Royal Family for £158.4 million ($238.7 million) in February of 2012.



Tags: Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, Poker Game, Sotheby's, A Bold Bluff, Waterloo, The Card Players, Paul Cezanne