Klimt's Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer sold for $236 million. Cattelan's Golden Toilet disappoints
The work, part of the Lauder collection, fetched an unprecedented amount for the artist during the inaugural auction at Sotheby's new headquarters.
The portrait of Elizabeth Lederer painted by Gustav Klimt was fetched $236.4 million at Sotheby's, a record for the artist, in a heart-stopping auction that opened its new headquarters in the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue.
The portrait of Klimt's patron's daughter, commissioned by her parents in 1914 and executed by 1916, had been purchased by cosmetics magnate Leonard Lauder, who died last June, in 1985 from the Serge Sabarsky Gallery.
The portrait of Elizabeth is the first of three Klimt included in the Lauder Collection auction. Together with four other works by the artist, it sold for a total of $392 million.
Six bidders competed for the painting at Sotheby's auction in New York for 20 minutes. The identity of the final buyer was not known.
The work was stolen by the Nazis and almost destroyed in a fire during World War II, but in 1948 it was returned to Lederer's brother, Erich, who was often the subject of drawings and paintings by Klimt's friend and fellow artist.
