Gustav Klimt portrait sells for second-highest auction price ever
Portrait thought to be destroyed by Nazis during WWII makes history at Sotheby’s
- Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold for £179.7m ($236.4m) at Sotheby's, making it the most valuable artwork ever sold by the auction house.
- The painting is now the second most expensive work of art sold at auction globally, surpassed only by Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi.
- The six-foot oil-on-canvas portrait, created between 1914-1916, depicts Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of prominent Viennese art patrons.
- Originating from the collection of the late Estée Lauder heir Leonard A Lauder, the artwork was a centrepiece of Sotheby's inaugural sale at its new Manhattan headquarters.
- The portrait carries significant historical weight, having been seized by the Nazis but surviving a fire that destroyed other Klimt works, with Elisabeth Lederer using her association with Klimt to protect herself during the occupation.