Eight Elvises Auction History

Andy Warhol, New York, 1963; produced for his silver Elvis body of work shown at Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles [3][2].

Annibale Berlingieri, Rome, acquired in the late 1960s; retained for roughly four decades and not publicly loaned [2][1].

Private collection, acquired via a 2008 private sale reportedly exceeding $100 million, brokered by Philippe Ségalot; buyer undisclosed [1][2].

Note: Some secondary Italian sources name dealers (e.g., Bruno Bischofberger, Gian Enzo Sperone) as intermediaries before Berlingieri; these details are unverified in primary records and should be treated cautiously [7].

The 2008 private sale of Eight Elvises for over $100 million placed Warhol among the very small cohort of artists with nine-figure works at the time—a club then associated with Picasso, Pollock, de Kooning, and Klimt—and represented a world record price for the artist as reported by The Economist [1]. Notably, this transaction surfaced amid the global financial crisis, underscoring the resilience of trophy-level demand for blue-chip Pop masterpieces even as broader markets retrenched [2]. The work’s mystique is heightened by its rarity on the market and a long period off-view; it has not been publicly exhibited since the 1960s, amplifying scarcity value and collector interest [2].

Context within Warhol’s market further clarifies the significance of Eight Elvises. The artist’s 1963 “Ferus-type” Elvis canvases are core to his Pop iconography and have achieved major results when available: Triple Elvis [Ferus Type] realized $81,925,000 at Christie’s in 2014, illustrating sustained depth of demand for the series’ most important iterations [4]. Beyond the Elvis subject, Warhol’s auction ceiling advanced with the $105.4 million sale of Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) in 2013, and later with Shot Sage Blue Marilyn achieving $195 million in 2022—the highest auction price for a 20th-century artwork—demonstrating the exceptional pricing power of prime 1960s Warhols featuring cultural icons and serial imagery [6][8].

Given these benchmarks, the reported $100m+ private price for Eight Elvises aligns with the market’s premium for large-scale, 1963-vintage, celebrity-based multiples. Its combination of scale (c. 12 feet), subject, and historical linkage to the seminal Ferus presentation make it a touchstone for valuation of top-tier Warhols, even though its ownership remains private and details of its current whereabouts are undisclosed [1][3][2].