The Badminton Cabinet

At the age of 19, Henry Somerset, 3rd Duke of Beaufort, commissioned the Badminton Cabinet, or Badminton Chest, in 1726. It took thirty experts six years to create and was named after the Duke of Badminton's country residence, Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England, where it remained until his family auctioned it off in the late twentieth century. It is regarded as one of the finest pieces of French furniture. This 12-foot-tall cabinet also houses a clock with digits shaped like fleurs-de-lis.

At a 2004 Christie's auction, this 18th century Florentine ebony chest carved with amethyst quartz, agate, lapis lazuli, and other stones sold for $36 million, breaking its own record as the most expensive furniture ever sold at auction. The previous record had been set in 1990, when Christie's sold the Badminton Cabinet to millionaire Barbara Piasecka Johnson for $16.59 million. In 2004, Johnson placed it up for sale, and Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein spent $36 million and presented it to the Liechtenstein Museum in Austria.

Price: $36 million