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Gustav Klimt's 'Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer.' Sotheby's/Facebook

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Agence France-Presse

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1763551549651546511120_1147200150848379_7509885663782183522_n.jpg" style="width:600px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Gustav Klimt&#x27;s &#x27;Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer.&#x27; Sotheby&#x27;s/Facebook</div>NEW YORK -- A portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetched $236.4 million in New York on Tuesday, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.Six bidders battled for 20 minutes over the &quot;Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,&quot; which Klimt painted between 1914 and 1916.The piece depicts the daughter of Klimt&#x27;s main patron dressed in a white imperial Chinese dress, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs.Sotheby&#x27;s, which managed the sale, did not disclose the identity of the buyer.The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the &quot;Salvator Mundi,&quot; attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for $450 million in 2017.&quot;Full-length society portraits of this impressive scale and from Klimt&#x27;s pinnacle period (1912-17) are exceptionally rare; the majority in major museum collections,&quot; Sotheby&#x27;s said of Tuesday&#x27;s sale.&quot;The painting offered this evening was one of only two such commissioned portraits remaining in private hands,&quot; it added in a statement.Several other works from Klimt were auctioned at the same event, including &quot;Flowering Meadow&quot; for $86 million and &quot;Forest Slope at Unterach am Attersee&quot; for $68.3 million -- both part of the collection of Estee Lauder cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder, who died earlier this year.In total, 24 lots from the Lauder collection generated $527.5 million.For Klimt, the past auction record for his work was held by &quot;Lady with a Fan,&quot; which sold for 85.3 million pounds ($108.8 million) in London in 2023.Another notable auction on Tuesday saw Italian provocateur Maurizio Cattelan&#x27;s solid gold toilet go for $12.1 million, and was sold to a famous American brand, according to Sotheby&#x27;s.An earlier version of the luxe latrine, titled &quot;America,&quot; was stolen in 2019 from a castle in England.Though it was never recovered -- and likely was melted down for cash -- three men were convicted in connection with the theft.On Thursday, a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo has a chance of setting a record for a female artist when it goes on sale, also at Sotheby&#x27;s in New York.Estimated at $40 to $60 million, the 1940 piece called &quot;The Dream (The Bed)&quot; shows the Mexican painter sleeping in a bed overshadowed by a large skeleton.The most expensive painting by a female artist sold to date is a 1932 work by American Georgia O&#x27;Keeffe, which fetched $44.4 million in 2014.The record for Frida Kahlo is another self-portrait from 1949, &quot;Diego and I,&quot; which sold for $34.4 million in New York.

A portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetched $236.4 million in New York on Tuesday, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

A portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetched $236.4 million in New York on Tuesday, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

Klimt portrait becomes second most expensive artwork sold at auction

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Klimt portrait becomes second most expensive artwork sold at auction

Agence France-Presse

Published November 19, 2025 07:29 PM PHT

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