An extraordinary portrait by Gustav Klimt, estimated at 127 million euros ($135 million), is set to go up for auction and could become the most expensive work by the Austrian artist ever sold. The magnificent "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer," painted by the Viennese master between 1914 and 1916, will be auctioned by Sotheby's in New York on November 18 during an evening sale featuring 24 lots at their new headquarters in the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue.
The oil on canvas painting, measuring 180 x 126 cm, comes from the private collection of American billionaire Leonard Lauder (1933-2025), co-heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics empire, who passed away last June. The artwork is considered museum-quality and represents one of the finest examples of Klimt's golden period.
"This painting embodies the aesthetic of the Viennese Golden Age, where youth, beauty, color and ornaments merge into a magnificent modernist portrait," said Helena Newman, co-head of Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Art department, in a statement. Like his other famous portraits, including that of Adèle Bloch-Bauer painted in 1907, Klimt carefully and realistically depicted the model's gentle and dreamy face, inserting it into a more stylized setting rich with refined decorative motifs typical of Jugendstil, the German version of Art Nouveau that swept through the Austro-Hungarian Empire between 1890 and the end of the 1900s decade.
This superb painting represents one of the last full-length portraits signed by the artist and depicts the daughter of Klimt's greatest patrons, August and Serena Lederer, who at the time held the second-largest fortune in Vienna after the Rothschild family. The young woman is dressed in a white dress that is half-fluid, half-puffy, evoking the orientalizing style of couturier Paul Poiret, as well as a fairy-like transparent coat equally immaculate, adorned with stylized flowers that seem to shimmer within this setting of blue and orange tones.
A cape scattered with multicolored motifs, grafted to her outfit like a frozen peacock's tail that gives the impression of being part of the wall behind her, creates a halo around the silhouette of this Viennese elite beauty, giving her the stature of a queen and the magic of an icon. Decorated with dragons and blue clouds referring to Chinese imperial iconography—an unprecedented reference in Klimt's work—this garment testifies, along with the background fabric populated with Asian characters in traditional costumes, to the painter's interest in foreign decorative arts, particularly Oriental ones.
The most expensive Klimt painting ever sold remains "Lady with a Fan" (1917-1918), which fetched 85.3 million pounds sterling (98.9 million euros) at Sotheby's London in 2023. The "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" is poised to break this record and will be sold alongside other works from Leonard Lauder's impressive collection, valued at over $400 million, which brings together 55 museum-quality works.
The collection includes two other Klimt landscapes, "Blumenwiese" (1908) and "Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee" (1916), estimated at $80 million and $70 million respectively, as well as works by Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch, and Henri Matisse. Before its sale in New York on November 18, the Lauder collection, including the precious Klimt, will be presented in Paris from October 20 to 24, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Oriental Gallery (85 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré).
