Outspoken Labour MP Diane Abbott sat for a stark £11,750 painting while a picture of veteran left-winger Dennis Skinner cost the public purse £2,180.
Former PM Sir John Major has been honoured with a £6,000 bronze bust while a full-sized statue of the late Margaret Thatcher cost £11,750.
The eye-watering art bill, revealed under Freedom of Information laws, has been racked up since 1995.
Decisions are taken by the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, a group of MPs currently chaired by Labour’s Frank Doran.
It has hired world-renowned artists including Jonathan Yeo, Stuart Pearson Wright and Phil Hale.
But critics branded the spending spree an “expensive vanity project” while hard-up Brits were being squeezed.
Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “When photographs are so much cheaper than paintings, politicians need to think twice about spending our money immortalising themselves or their friends on canvas, or even in bronze.”
He said that while Brits will expect former prime ministers to be honoured, “the net is being cast increasingly wide when it comes to identifying subjects”.
The figures reveal a big jump in spending since the Labour landslide of 1997, with more regular commissions and higher fees paid to top artists.
Between 1995 and 2000, only three MPs were granted portraits.
They were the first woman Speaker Baroness Boothroyd, who was painted twice, former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown and veteran Labour MP Tony Benn.
That came in at a total cost of £13,500, or an average of £3,375 per painting.
But from 2000 to 2005, eleven parliamentarians were honoured at a cost of £78,980 – an average of £7,180.
And the next five years saw 10 commissions run up a bill for £93,076, an average of £9,300 each.
There are now so many portraits of MPs in the Palace of Westminster that paintings now fill several corridors in Portcullis House, the MPs’ office block opposite Big Ben.
Since 2010, spending on art has fallen.
But several MPs have bucked the trend – with a lavish portrait of Commons Speaker John Bercow costing £22,000 to commission plus £15,000 for a frame and coat of arms.
Former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett sat for an £11,750 painting unveiled in 2011.
Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman declined a portrait in 2012 after The Sun exposed its cost.
But we revealed last year how Deputy Speaker Dawn Primarolo has been approved for a £12,000 portrait.
A Commons spokesman said: "The Parliamentary Art Collection at the House of Commons records those who have made a significant contribution to UK political life over the centuries.
"In recent years the annual budget for acquiring works of art for the collection has been reduced to reflect the need for savings in the current economic downturn.
“This is part of the House’s drive to reduce its overall cost by 17 per cent by 2014-15."
