Auction house Sotheby’s says the highest price paid for a piece of art – essentially canvas and paint – was Pablo Picasso’s Garcon à la Pipe which sold for a nominal value of $104m. It was sold through Sotheby’s at a 2004 New York sale to an unknown bidder, after a high estimate of $70m.

Picasso painted it in 1905 during his Rose Period when he was 24. John Whitney, a former US ambassador to Britain, bought Garcon à la Pipe in 1950 for $30,000, which by 2004's prices would be worth $229,000.