- A portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by Gustav Klimt sold for $236.4 million.
- The painting became the second most expensive work sold at auction.
- The painting shows the daughter of Klimt’s patron in a white dress in front of a tapestry.
- The auction lasted 20 minutes, 6 people applied for the painting.
A portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt was sold at auction in New York on Tuesday for a record 236.4 million dollars (204 million euros), making it the second most expensive work of art ever sold at auction. This was reported by the AFP agency, writes TASR.
Only the painting Salvator Mundi attributed to the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci achieved a higher price. which was sold in New York in 2017 for 450 million dollars (approximately 380 million euros at the time).
Six bidders fought for the painting, which Klimt painted in the years 1914-16, at Tuesday’s auction. The auction lasted 20 minutes. The identity of the buyer was not disclosed by Sotheby’s auction house. The asking price was 150 million dollars (129 million euros). The sold work depicts the daughter of Klimt’s main patron dressed in a white dress, standing in front of a blue tapestry with Asian motifs.
Sotheby’s clarified in its statement that similar large full-length portraits created by the Austrian painter during his peak period (1912-17) are extremely rare. Most of them are part of important museum collections and only a very small number of them are owned by private collectors.
In this auction several other Klimt works were auctioned, including Flowering Meadow for $86 million (74 million euros) and Forest Slope near Unterach am Attersee for $68.3 million (58.9 million euros). Both paintings were part of the collection of the heir to the cosmetics brand Estée Lauder Leonardo Lauder, who died earlier this year.
In total, the sale of 24 items from Lauder’s collection generated $527.5 million (€455.6 million), including $391.7 million (€338.3 million) for works by Gustav Klimt. The Klimt painting that sold at auction for the highest price so far was the portrait of the Lady with a Fan – it was auctioned in London in 2023 for 85.3 million pounds (98.9 million euros).
