Gustav Klimt’s 1914–16 portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold for $236.4 million with fees during the first evening sale at Sotheby’s new headquarters at the Breuer Building in New York tonight, November 18.
Surpassing its $150 million estimate, the painting sold to a phone bidder with Julian Dawes, head of Impressionist and Modern Art, after a 20-minute bidding volley. Auctioneer Oliver Barker told a crowded saleroom it was the highest price ever paid for a modern artwork at auction.
It is also the second most expensive work ever sold on the public market, after Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” which sold for $450 million at Christie’s, and the priciest work ever sold by Sotheby’s.
Gustav Klimt, “Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer” (1914–16) (image courtesy Sotheby’s New York; Leonard A. Lauder Collection)
“Tonight, we made history at the Breuer,” said Helena Newman, Sotheby’s global chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art, in a statement. “Klimt is one of those rare artists whose magic is as powerful as it is universal.”
“Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” depicts the 20-year-old daughter of Jewish industrial magnate August Lederer and his wife Szerena, who were patrons of Klimt in Vienna. Lederer grew so close to Klimt, who died two years after completing her portrait, that she called him her “uncle” and later claimed he was her biological father to evade scrutiny when Vienna was under Nazi rule, according to Sotheby’s.
It was one of three Klimt oils in Sotheby’s sale of works from the collection of the late Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder; two landscapes by the artist sold for $86 million and $70.7 million.
The sale also included several Matisse sculptures and two Agnes Martin geometric paintings, which sold for $14.6 million and $7.3 million, respectively.
A pre-sale exhibition at Sotheby’s in New York was visited by around 25,000 people, the auction house said in a statement.
