Orange, Red, Yellow - Mark Rothko

Price in US $ - 86 million

Orange, Red, Yellow, a 1961 Color Field painting by Mark Rothko, has become the most expensive post-war work sold at auction. The painting's trio of orange and yellow rectangles bobbing atop a cherry-red background forms a palette that's as eye-catching as a sunset or a Popsicle. Rothko's shimmering "colour field" paintings have never been as attention grabbing as his macho Action Painting contemporaries Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.

These subtly spiritual works, when properly lit, are thought to offer a similar lofty experience that one gets in a place of worship, like a cathedral. Only their refusal to associate with language, or any period in art history, mean they transcend the specificity of religion.