A portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt has shattered auction records, selling for $236.4 million and becoming the most valuable artwork ever sold at Sotheby's and the second-most expensive piece of art in auction history. The six-foot-tall oil-on-canvas painting, titled "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer," was created between 1914 and 1916 and depicts 20-year-old Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of prominent Viennese art patrons August and Serena Lederer.
The extraordinary sale took place at Sotheby's newly acquired Manhattan headquarters in New York's Breuer Building, formerly home to the Whitney Museum of American Art. The portrait shows Elisabeth dressed in a Chinese-style dragon robe against a shimmering decorative background, representing one of only two full-length Klimt portraits remaining in private hands. Auctioneer Oliver Barker described the canvas as "one of the last opportunities to acquire a portrait of this significance by the artist."
The painting came from the collection of the late Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder, who acquired it in 1985 and displayed it for decades in his Fifth Avenue apartment. While the work had been estimated at around $197 million, the final hammer price far exceeded expectations after a fierce bidding war involving at least six bidders that lasted nearly 20 minutes. The successful bid came from a telephone bidder represented by Julian Dawes, Sotheby's vice-chairman and head of Impressionist and modern art, with the room reportedly erupting in applause when the gavel fell.
The painting carries profound historical significance beyond its artistic value. During World War II, the Lederer family's extensive art collection was seized by the Nazis, and many of their Klimt paintings were later destroyed in a fire at Immendorf Castle in Austria. However, "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" was stored separately and escaped the blaze that consumed other works.
Most remarkably, Elisabeth herself used her connection to Klimt as protection during the Nazi occupation of Austria. Claiming to be Klimt's illegitimate daughter and therefore not Jewish, she relied on this fabricated identity to survive persecution. Her mother signed an affidavit supporting this false claim, and with assistance from her former brother-in-law, who was a high-ranking Nazi official, Elisabeth managed to secure documentation stating she was descended from Klimt. This deception allowed her to remain safely in Vienna until her death in 1944.
After the war, the portrait was returned to Elisabeth's brother Erich in 1948. He later sold it in 1983 to art dealer Serge Sabarsky, who then sold it to Leonard A. Lauder two years later. Emily Braun, curator of the Leonard A. Lauder Collection, noted the painting's powerful presence, telling The New York Times: "She's looking directly at you, she's not passive." Braun also revealed that the painting held special meaning for Lauder, whose wife Evelyn had fled Vienna as a child because she was Jewish, creating a multilayered personal connection to the work's wartime history.
Helena Newman, Sotheby's worldwide chairman of Impressionist and modern art and chairman of its European operations, celebrated the historic sale in a statement: "Tonight, we made history at the Breuer. To see Gustav Klimt's exquisite portrait of Elisabeth Lederer set a new auction record for the artist is thrilling in itself; to see it become the most valuable work ever sold at Sotheby's is nothing short of sensational. Klimt is one of those rare artists whose magic is as powerful as it is universal."
The Klimt portrait was one of three oils consigned from Lauder's collection for the sale, with two landscapes selling for $113 million and $92.7 million respectively. The portrait alone accounted for almost 45 percent of the $691.5 million total achieved that evening from the Lauder collection. The sale also surpassed Klimt's previous auction record of $108.4 million for his 1917-18 portrait "Lady with a Fan," which sold in 2023.
The only artwork to achieve a higher public sale price remains Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," which sold for $450.3 million at Christie's in 2017. The auction also featured several Matisse sculptures and two Agnes Martin paintings, which sold for $19.1 million and $9.6 million respectively. Sotheby's reported that approximately 25,000 visitors viewed the works during the pre-sale exhibition, with queues forming around the block to see the historic collection.
