David Hockney painting set to break records - but what else could you buy for £61 million?

The world record for the highest price fetched by a work created by a living artist is set to be smashed this year when a painting by British artist David Hockney goes up for auction.

Portrait Of An Artist (Pool With Two Figures) is estimated at £61 million ($80m) and if it sells at the expected rate it will easily break the previous record set by Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog, which sold for £45 million ($58.4m) in 2013.

Despite the expected sale figure being dwarfed by the price of works by deceased artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for £342 million in 2017, £61m can still buy a lot outside the art world.

Here is a list of things you could buy with that kind of cash:

  • Angel Di Maria

Angel Di Maria failed to perform in Manchester despite his huge price-tag. Credit: PA

For £61 million you could buy Argentine footballer Angel Di Maria and still have a little left over, but you probably wouldn't want to.

Manchester United paid Real Madrid £59.7m to sign the winger in 2014 but after poor performances he was offloaded the following year to Paris Saint-Germain for £44.3 million.

  • Jay Z’s Mercedes-Maybach Exelero

It is believed Jay-Z paid $8m for his Maybach Exelero. Credit: AP

It is believed music mogul Jay-Z paid £6.1 million ($8m) for a super-cool Maybach Exelero - meaning with £61m you could buy ten of them.

The Exelero, which featured in Jay-Z and Kanye's 'Otis' video, is a high-performance car with a top speed of over 200 miles per hour.

Despite the car's price-tag, the figure Jay-Z paid is peanuts compared to what he is allegedly worth - a huge £619.5 million.

  • The Nectar reward scheme

Sainsbury's bought the Nectar reward scheme for £60m. Credit: PA

At the start of 2018 Sainsbury's paid Amia £60 million to buy the Nectar loyalty scheme that replaced the shop's own reward card 15 years ago.

The rewards card was launched in 2002 by Sir Keith Mills, and it combined rewards schemes from four high-street retailers.

This was long before companies realised the advantages of big data and simply saw rewards schemes as a way of promoting customer loyalty.

Having realised the importance of "knowing its customers better than anyone else", Sainsbury's decided to bring its rewards scheme back under its own control.

  • Halls Pond Cay island in the Bahamas

Halls Pond Cay island in the Bahamas is listed on Vladi Private Islands for $75m (£57.4m). Credit: vladi-private-islands.de

According to Vladi Private Islands Halls Pond Cay 'is without a doubt one of the best positioned private islands in the Caribbean', which is why it has a huge price tag of £57.4 million ($75m).

For comparison, in August 2017 Little Ross, an island off the southern coast of Dumfries and Galloway, sold after being listed for just £325,000.

At Halls Pond Cay island, the buyer will enjoy facilities such as a heli-pad, a sea-plane ramp, and have access to "an incredible twelve pristine powder white beaches".

  • Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona watch

Hollywood actor and race car driver Paul Newman was given the watch (not pictured) by his wife Joanne Woodward while he was filming 'Winning'. Credit: Rolex/PA

In 2017 a watch previously owned by Hollywood actor and race car driver Paul Newman broke the record for the most expensive watch of all time when it sold at auction for £13.6 million ($17.8m).

The watch was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder and took just 12 minutes to sell at an auction in New York.

The buyer was clearly very eager to own the watch and placed an initial bid of £7.65 million ($10m), despite the bidding starting at £765,385 ($1).

For £61 million he or she could have bought four of the watches and if four existed he or she probably would have.