What’s One Museum Work the Top 200 Collectors Would Own If They Could?

The ARTnews Top 200 Collectors are among the world’s most voracious art buyers, many of them obsessed with adding works to their collections long after the walls of their homes can accommodate their purchases.

There are, however, limits to what they can buy—not everything is available. As part of our annual questionnaire to the Top 200, we asked the collectors if there was one artwork held by a museum that they would own if they could, what would it be. (For the record, we did ask them to limit it to just one work.)

[Explore the 2026 edition of the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list.]

Hieronymus Bosch and Édouard Manet are favorites, appearing in multiple responses. Two collectors mentioned major works of Land art, with one admitting he wouldn’t know where to put it.

The answers that follow are illuminating into what art inspires today’s most active collectors. Some provided explanations behind their reasonings, while others simply left it at just the artwork name.

Pedro Barbosa: Hans Haacke, Condensation Cube (1963–67).

James Keith “JK” Brown and Eric Diefenbach: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1500), in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Disaphol Chansiri: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Reception of the Siamese ambassadors by Emperor Napoleon III at the Palace of Fontainebleau, June 27, 1861 (1864), in the collection of Château de Fontainebleau. I had wanted to see this painting for a long time, and recently made a special visit to the Château de Fontainebleau to see it. It is a moment in Thai history that we have learned about since childhood. To see the painting and the objects connected to that history in the very place where it happened was quite emotional for me. It made me think about the relationship between Siam and France, and how important it was to the history of my country.

Lonti Ebers: Kazimir Malevich, Painterly Realism of a Boy with a Knapsack—Color Masses in the Fourth Dimension (1915), in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Nicola Erni: Robert Rauschenberg, Monogram (1955–59), in the collection of Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

Hortensia Herrero: Vincent van Gogh, View of Arles, Flowering Orchards, TK, in the collection of the TK. Van Gogh is an artist who has always fascinated me. As an amateur painter, I used to copy his works, so it was a wonderful surprise to discover, at the major exhibition dedicated to him at the National Gallery in London in 2024, one of the paintings I had copied myself: View of Arles, Flowering Orchards, which I still have at home. It is not one of his best-known works, but if I could dream, I would love to own the original and hang it in my home next to the version I painted myself.

Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida: Frank Bowling, Raining Down South (1968), in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. I tried to buy it, but it was too tall for any ceiling I had at the time. However, I visit it regularly when it is on view at MoMA, where it always looks glorious.

Elie Khouri: Pablo Picasso, Guernica (1937), in the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid. It is one of the rare works that transcends art. It is visually groundbreaking, emotionally overwhelming, and historically significant. Every time I stand before it, I discover something new. It remains profoundly relevant because its message is timeless. Civilians continue to bear the greatest cost of conflict, from Ukraine and Gaza to Sudan and beyond.

Cheech Marin: John Valadez, Pool Party (1987), in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. I loved that painting so much that I donated it to the museum because I wanted more people to experience it. That’s the funny thing about collecting. You sometimes realize that the greatest joy isn’t owning a work forever, it’s helping make sure it has a life beyond your walls.

Suzanne McFayden: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1500), in the collection of the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Raymond J. McGuire and Crystal McCrary McGuire: Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa (ca. 1503–06), in the collection of the Louvre, Paris.

Jarl and Pamela Mohn: Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field (1977), installed in western New Mexico and maintained by the Dia Art Foundation. Not sure where I’d put it, but it totally knocks me out every time I see it.

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo: Piero della Francesca, The Montefeltro Altarpiece (1472–74), in the collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

Pete Scantland: Édouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Emile Stipp: Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882), in the collection of the Courtauld, London.

Basma Al Sulaiman: Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Christen Sveaas: Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait (ca. 1628), in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Hiroshi Taguchi and Miwa Taguchi-Sugiyama: Tehching Hsieh, One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece), 1980–81, in the collection of the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing.

Jenny Yeh: Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1970), Great Salt Lake, Utah, in the collection of the Dia
Art Foundation.