Overview
- Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer set a new auction record for Gustav Klimt at $236.4 million including fees, trailing only Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.
- Bidding lasted about 20 minutes, with a hammer price of $205 million before the buyer’s premium brought the total to $236.4 million.
- The purchaser was not identified after the sale, which presented works from the late Leonard A. Lauder’s collection at Sotheby’s new Breuer-designed headquarters in New York.
- Other highlights included Klimt landscapes at roughly $86 million and $68.3 million and Maurizio Cattelan’s 18‑carat gold toilet, America, at $12.1 million.
- Painted circa 1914–1916, the portrait was seized from the Lederer family by the Nazis in 1938 and later restituted to the heirs before entering Lauder’s collection.