Top Auction Records of 2025

Here's a look back at some of last year's most impressive auction records, including lamps, Lincoln, and Labubu.

The beginning of a new year is often a time to look back on the highs and lows of the last year. Right now, we'd like to focus on the highs; specifically, high auction prices. Plenty of new auction records were set in 2025 across categories like fine art, fashion, pop culture, and even beer cans! Here are some of the best we covered, from highest to lowest, and a few more we missed.

$54.6 million for El Sueño (La cama) by Frida Kahlo, sold at Sotheby’s “Exquisite Corpus Evening Auction” in New York, November 20

Like many of Kahlo’s best-known paintings, El Sueño (La cama) is an intimate, surreal self-portrait whose themes resonate on both personal and cultural levels. The painting’s striking imagery, references to indigenous Mexican culture, and Kahlo’s masterful work depicting them brought it to the highest price any painting by a woman has achieved at auction.

£22.9 million ($30.2 million) for the Winter Egg, sold at Christie’s “The Winter Egg and Important Works by Fabergé from a Princely Collection” in London, December 2

Even among Fabergé eggs, the Winter Egg is a breathtaking example of beauty, precious materials, skilled craftsmanship, and historical significance. That’s why it set an auction record for these Imperial treasures, selling for £22.9 million ($30.2 million) at Christie’s.

Prototype Hermès Birkin bag designed for Jane Birkin, sold for €8.6 million ($10 million) at Sotheby’s “Fashion Icons including The Original Birkin” in Paris, July 10

Birkin bags are already some of the most coveted, and most expensive, accessories in luxury fashion. The original Birkin bag, designed for and used by Jane Birkin herself, tops them all in terms of status, legacy, and now price. Its €8.6 million ($10 million) sale at Sotheby’s, ending in applause, was an auction record for not just handbags, but any fashion item.

$9.12 million for a copy of Superman #1, sold at Heritage Auctions “Comic Books Signature Auction,” closed November 22

This copy of Superman #1, now the most expensive comic book to ever sell at auction, was a super example of the celebrated Golden Age title. Not only was it a first printing, it received a near-perfect 9.0 CGC grade. And, like most comic book heroes, it has an incredible origin story: It spent decades stashed in a box in a San Francisco attic, until three brothers discovered it while cleaning their late mother’s home.

$7.5 million for a Double Pedestal Lamp designed for Susan Lawrence Dana sold at Sotheby’s “Modern Evening Auction,” May 13

The lamp, like the house it was made for, is a masterpiece of Wright’s skill, design philosophy, and eye for beauty. One of the many custom pieces Wright made for Susan Lawrence Dana, the lamp has a peaked shade, panels resembling Japanese screens, and panes of iridescent glass. Its sale price reflects not only its significance, but also the increasing importance of decorative arts and design among today’s art collectors.

$5.3 million for a Martian meteorite, sold at Sotheby’s “Natural History” auction, closed July 16

Meteorite NWA 16788 isn’t just the largest piece of planet Mars to fall to Earth. The massive rock, weighing more than 50 pounds, is also the most expensive item coming from Mars to sell at auction.

$4.4 million for a Magnolia floor lamp, c.1910, sold at Sotheby’s “Dreaming in Glass: Masterworks by Tiffany Studios” auction, closed December 11

Louis Comfort Tiffany’s lamps with leaded glass shades are icons of American decorative arts. With a sale price of $4.4 million dollars, a 75-3/4-inch tall floor lamp with a Magnolia shade has become the most expensive to sell at auction. The lamp’s design is attributed to Agnes Northrop, the designer behind the Danner Memorial Window, which set an auction record for any Tiffany Studios item when it sold for $12.48 million at Sotheby’s in 2024.

$1,512,500 for a pair of leather gloves Abraham Lincoln carried to Ford’s Theatre, sold at Freeman’s | Hindman “Lincoln’s Legacy: Historic Americana from the Life of Abraham Lincoln” auction, closed May 21

The Freeman’s | Hindman auction, held on behalf of the Lincoln Presidential Foundation, set multiple records as it raised a total of $7,899,994. The 16th president was known to carry multiple pairs of gloves, in deference to the social customs of the time, and one of the pairs he brought to Ford’s Theatre that fateful night sold for more than $1.5 million, an auction record for any historical artifact connected to the tragedy.

$1.04 million for Cabin at Sunset, sold in an online auction hosted by GiveSmart, closing November 24

2025 might have been the year that Bob Ross truly went from being a TV personality (albeit a very well-loved one!) to a name to be taken seriously in the art world. His paintings saw four auction records, culminating in the first to break a million dollars. donated by Bob Ross, Inc., to raise funds for public broadcasting.

£300,000 ($399,000) for a letter written on board the Titanic by Colonel Archibald Gracie at Henry Aldridge & Son “Auction of Titanic, White Star, Transport and Icons of the 20th Century,” April 26

Colonel Gracie, “one of the highest profile survivors” of the famous shipwreck, wrote a letter to during the voyage where he admitted he thought the Titanic wasn’t quite as impressive as the Olympic. In retrospect, that line seems almost prophetic, and probably helped propel the unsent letter to a record price its first time at auction.

$325,000 for a concept painting for The Tourist, c.1980, at Heritage Auctions, “The Guillermo del Toro Collection: Bleak House Part 1,” September 26

H.R. Giger’s c.1980 airbrush painting of eerie alien forms, a piece of concept art for the unproduced science fiction/horror script The Tourist, set an auction record for the artist behind the nightmare-inducing monsters from the Alien franchise. The painting previously belonged to filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who is collaborating with Heritage to auction his “Bleak House” collection in a series of events that will continue this year.

¥1.08 million ($150,275) for a 4 ft. 3 in. mint-green Labubu figure, at Yongle International Auction in Beijing, June 10

You can’t talk about collectibles in 2025 without mentioning Labubu! The fuzzy, wide-eyed, toothy-grinned toys were everywhere this year, dangling from pop stars’ purses and taking eBay by storm. While some collectors might be willing to pay thousands of dollars for the rarest varieties of the toy in its typical small size, the record price goes to a “human-sized” version that sold at an auction in June.

$111,150 for a 1950s Chief Oshkosh crowntainer, sold at Morean Auctions, March 9

To beer can collectors, the Chief Oshkosh can has it all: a rare can type, stunning graphics, and near-perfect condition. To its buyer, who, like the Oshkosh Brewing Co., is from Wisconsin, it was a piece of local history. Now, it has the additional honor of being the most expensive beer can to sell at auction.

But wait, there’s more! 2025 had so many remarkable auction records, we couldn’t cover them all.

$263.3 million for Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer), sold by Sotheby’s New York, “Leonard A. Lauder, Collector | Evening Auction,” November 18

$31.4 million for the Hippopotame Bar by François-Xavier Lalanne (also an artist record), sold by Sotheby’s, “Important Design, Featuring Works from the Schlumberger Collection,” December 10

£3.1 million ($4.1 million) for a portrait of Arnout Tholinx, Rembrandt van Rijn, c.1656, sold at Christie’s “The Sam Josefowitz Colleciton: Graphic Masterpieces by Rembrandt Van Rijn” auction, London, December 3

$4 million for the "Cup of Joy," a hammered silver Kiddush cup made in present-day Afghanistan, 11th or 12th century, sold as a single lot at Sotheby’s on October 29. The cup, the oldest surviving example of a kiddush cup, was purchased by the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio and is expected to go on view starting in 2027.

$3.875 million for the painting by Tom Jung for the iconic poster for Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope at Heritage Auctions “Hollywood/Entertainment Signature Auction,” December 10. Not only did this break the record set by the $3.6 million sale of a Darth Vader lightsaber prop at Propstore Auctions on September 4, it was also an auction record for any movie poster art.

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