Tehran Auction results and records from 2012 to 2026

The first sale took place in 1391 (2012). According to Mashregh News and the auction's page for that sale, it offered 73 works and sold all of them. The auction then held one sale a year until 1394 (2015).

From 1395 (2016) the auction moved to two sales in most years, usually one in spring or summer and one in winter. In 1402 (2023/24) and 1403 (2024/25) it held three sales each.

Three of the 26 sales were held online, the first in December 2023. The online 21st sale offered 140 lots, the largest number among the sales with a confirmed count, according to Mehr News Agency. The 25th and 26th sales were held in person and offered 100 lots each.

The first sale sold works worth 2.15 billion tomans. The second sold 6.5 billion tomans, according to ILNA, and the third 13.3 billion tomans, according to Hamshahri Online.

All amounts in this analysis are nominal tomans at the prices of the time and are not adjusted for inflation. Up to the 17th sale the auction published one total for each sale and did not say whether the buyer's premium was included. The chart shows the 12 sales of this period whose total is confirmed by two sources.

The 5th sale in 1395 (2016) sold 25.4 billion tomans, according to Khabaronline. By the 10th sale in January 2019 the total had reached 34.4 billion tomans, as Mehr reported.

The 13th sale, held in January 2021, sold 87.9 billion tomans, according to Fararu. A year later the 15th sale sold 158.9 billion tomans, and all 80 works on offer found buyers, as Donya-e-Eqtesad reported.

Totals did not rise at every sale. The 14th sale, held in August 2021, sold 42.7 billion tomans, according to Mehr. The 16th sale in July 2022 sold 78.1 billion tomans, as Entekhab reported.

From the 18th sale onward, Tehran Auction publishes two totals for each sale. One is the hammer total, and the other adds the buyer's premium of 10%.

The 18th sale was the first held online, in December 2023. Its hammer total was 61.8 billion tomans, according to Hamshahri Online, and it sold 112 of 114 works. For the sales from the 20th to the 25th, the total with the premium is confirmed by two sources.

The lowest of these totals was 120.3 billion tomans at the 21st sale, held online in October 2024. The highest was 464.3 billion tomans at the 25th sale in July 2026, as IRNA reported in a story carried by Tejarat News.

The 22nd sale, in February 2025, sold 224.7 billion tomans, according to Eghtesad News. This was the highest confirmed total until the 25th sale, which sold about twice as much.

The online 21st and 24th sales each sold less than the sales held in person just before and after them. Sources differ slightly on the totals of the 19th and 26th sales, so no figure is given for them.

A work by Sohrab Sepehri was the most expensive lot at 10 of the 26 sales. His works topped each of the first five sales for which the top lot is confirmed, from 1391 (2012) to 1395 (2016).

At the first sale, an untitled work by Sepehri sold for 190 million tomans. By the 9th sale in 1397 (2018), a Sepehri work reached 5.1 billion tomans. Mehr and Etemad both described it as the auction's record at the time.

Six other artists have also had the top lot. Parviz Tanavoli had it at four sales, and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian and Reza Derakhshani at three each.

Aydin Aghdashloo and Hossein Zenderoudi each had the top lot twice. The 22nd sale was the only one topped by Reza Abbasi, whose Portrait of a Seated Girl sold for 22.4 billion tomans with the premium.

The sixth sale, in December 2016, is the only one at which the sources name different works as the top lot.

Until 2020 the top price at Tehran Auction stayed below 10 billion tomans. The first work to pass that level was by Aydin Aghdashloo, sold for 12 billion tomans at the 13th sale in January 2021.

No work at the 12 earlier sales had sold for more than 5.1 billion tomans. Parviz Tanavoli's Seated Poet then sold for 14.6 billion tomans at the 15th sale in January 2022.

At the 17th sale in 1402 (2023), a work by Sepehri sold for 21.3 billion tomans, according to Mehr. At the 25th sale in July 2026, his work Lofty Horizon sold for 38.5 billion tomans at the hammer.

Three months later, Tanavoli's Hich sold for 280 billion tomans at the hammer, as the auction's page for the 26th sale shows. The hammer price of this single work was higher than the confirmed total of any sale up to the 24th.

Each sale since the 20th has offered between 99 and 140 lots. Not all of them find buyers.

At the 22nd sale, 84 of the 99 works on offer were sold. At the 24th sale, 114 of 120 works were sold, according to Taadol. At the 25th sale the figure was 96 of 100 works.

The 20th sale in July 2024 sold 190.5 billion tomans, as Donya-e-Eqtesad reported. The 23rd sale in May 2025 sold 174.9 billion tomans, according to Rokna.