Paul Cézanne
Cézanne's The Card Players (1882) is at present the world's most expensive painting. It was sold for more than $250 million in 2011 to the royal family of Qatar. What makes this all the more remarkable is that there are four other Cézanne 'Card Players'. They are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée d’Orsay, the Courtauld, and the Barnes Foundation. His best friend was Emile Zola.