The Metropolitan Museum has made its most expensive purchase ever – more than $45 million for a painting by the early Renaissance master Duccio di Buoninsegna no bigger than a sheet of typing paper. In reporting the acquisition, the Met would not discuss price beyond confirming that it was the most costly purchase in its history. (In such deals, buyers are often legally bound not to reveal the sale price.) But art experts familiar with the deal, insisting on anonymity for fear of jeopardizing the sale, said the price was $45 million to $50 million. That would top the Met’s previous record purchase, of Jasper Johns’s “White Flag” (1955) for more than $20 million in 1998.”