What little indulgence can satisfy the man who can afford virtually everything? For Microsoft man Bill Gates, with a personal net worth estimated at £24 billion, it's downloading yet another artistic bauble into his user queue of fine art. Gates this week reportedly paid more than £18 million in a private sale for Lost on the Grand Banks, the last major seascape by American artist Winslow Homer. The 1885 oil painting, measuring 32 inches by 50 inches, is an image of two fishermen in rough seas peering over the side of their boat, the price paid being three times the record for a painting by an American artist.

Bill's most public art acquisition was his £18 million purchase of the Codex Leicester, a 72page manuscript compiled by Leonardo da Vinci. Many will reach for the calculators to work out the cost per square inch of the latest acquisition, an extravagance exceeding even Lord Irving's famous wallpaper.