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Klimt Portrait Sells for $236 Million, Becomes Second Most Expensive Artwork at Auction

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A rare portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt has sold for $236.4 million (£179m) at Sotheby’s in New York, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever auctioned. The Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, painted between 1914 and 1916, triggered a 20-minute bidding war among six buyers. Sotheby’s did not disclose the identity of the winning bidder.

The painting’s history is as dramatic as its price. It was looted by the Nazis, nearly destroyed in a World War Two fire, and later recovered in 1948. Returned to Lederer’s brother, Erich, it remained with the family until it was sold in 1983. The portrait, which shows Lederer in a white robe before a blue tapestry with Asian motifs, later entered the private collection of Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder in 1985, where it stayed until this week’s sale.

Tuesday’s auction far exceeded expectations, with Sotheby’s originally estimating a price of $150 million. Several other Klimt works from Lauder’s collection also sold for between $60m and $80m. The record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction remains Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which fetched $450.3m in 2017. In a separate headline, a 101-kg functioning gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan sold for $12.1m during the same event.

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‘Lost’ Gustav Klimt painting to be auctioned

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An Austrian auction house in Vienna is preparing to auction off a long-lost painting by Gustav Klimt, called “Portrait of Fraulein Lieser,” which he began in 1917, just a year before his death. There’s considerable mystery surrounding the artwork, including the identity of the woman depicted and its whereabouts during the Nazi era.

Art historians suggest the painting might portray Margarethe Constance Lieser, daughter of a wealthy Jewish industrialist, Adolf Lieser. However, the auction house proposes it could also be one of the daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife Henriette, who tragically died in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. The exact history of the painting after 1925 remains unclear, but it resurfaced in the 1960s and has since changed hands through inheritances.

The auction is being conducted in accordance with the Washington Principles, an international agreement to return Nazi-looted art to its rightful descendants. However, there are calls for an independent investigation into the case by Erika Jakubovits, the executive director of the Presidency of the Austrian Jewish Community. She emphasizes the importance of thorough and transparent research in art restitution cases.

Klimt’s artworks have previously fetched significant sums at auctions, with “Lady with a Fan” setting a European record when it sold for £85.3m in 2023 at Sotheby’s.

Picture Courtesy: Google/images are subject to copyright