Titanic star’s portrait sells for $1.3M at Cannes

A portrait of Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio sold for a whopping $1.3 million at the amfAR Cannes gala last week.

According to the auctioneer, artist Damien Hirst was hired to paint the actor on canvas. The piece was later bought by a private collector, who then chose to donate the artwork to amfAR, with the intention that someone else could hang DiCaprio in their living room.

Hirst’s 2016 Beautiful Leonardo DiCaprio Looking Away Painting is part of his Spin Paintings series, though the title also anticipates his more recent “Beautiful Paintings” series. And on May 25, it sold for $1.2 million to benefit amfAR, a nonprofit dedicated to AIDS research and HIV prevention.

DiCaprio’s face was not the most lucrative piece on the market, however, with a new Aston Martin sports car selling for $1.6 million at the auction. 

Other items that sold included white-gold earrings from Chopard for $300,000, a glass sculpture by Anthony James seen in the Netflix film “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” for $270,000 and a collection of 18 dresses from the biggest fashion houses, including Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton, for $650,000.