Six buyers competed for 20 minutes for “The portrait of Elisabeth Lederer”, which represents the daughter of Klimt’s main patron.
A portrait painted by Austrian Gustav Klimt, sold for $236.4 million (204 million euros) by Sotheby’s on Tuesday in New York, became the second most expensive work ever auctioned.
The most expensive painting to date sold at auction remains the painting “Salvator Mundi”, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, sold for 450 million dollars in 2017.
Six buyers competed for 20 minutes for “The portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” (1914-1916), estimated at 150 million dollars, which represents the daughter of Klimt’s main patron in a white Chinese imperial dress, in front of a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs.
Sotheby’s did not immediately reveal the name of the buyer.
Like the “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer”, the large full-length portraits created by Gustav Klimt during his heyday (between 1912 and 1917) are “extremely rare”explains Sotheby’s in a statement. Most are part of the collections of large museums, very few are held by private collectors.
For the Austrian artist, the previous auction record was held by the “Lady with a Fan” (1917-1918), awarded for 85.3 million pounds sterling (98.9 million euros) in London in 2023.
Several other works by the artist were sold at the same auction on Tuesday, including the painting “Prairie en fleur” (c. 1908) for $86 million (74.2 million euros) and the “Forest slopes in Unterach am Attersee” (1916) for $68.3 million (58.9 million euros).
These paintings, as well as two studies for a portrait sold for $520,700 (449,550 euros) and $482,600 (416,650 euros), were part of the collection of Leonard A. Lauder, heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics empire, who died in June at the age of 92.
Put up for sale on Thursday by Sotheby’s in New York, a self-portrait of Frida Kahlo has a good chance of becoming the most expensive painting made by a woman.
Estimated at between 40 and 60 million dollars, this 1940 painting entitled “The Dream (The Room)” depicts her sleeping in a bed on which a huge skeleton stands.
The most expensive painting by a female artist sold to date is a 1932 work by American Georgia O’Keeffe, which fetched $44.4 million in 2014.
Frida Kahlo’s record is another 1949 self-portrait, “Diego and I,” which sold for $34.4 million in New York.
