Sold for $236m: The Klimt portrait its painter didn't even like

A portrait by Gustav Klimt fetched $236.4 million, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction – despite the fact that the famous Austrian artist didn't really like it.

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which Klimt painted between 1914 and 1916, depicts the 20-year-old daughter of his main patron dressed in a white imperial Chinese dress, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs. 

"Full-length society portraits of this impressive scale and from Klimt's pinnacle period (1912-17) are exceptionally rare; the majority in major museum collections," Sotheby's said of the sale. 

"The painting offered this evening was one of only two such commissioned portraits remaining in private hands," it added in a statement. 

Auctioneer Oliver Barker said the portrait represented "the height of Klimt's artistic maturity and deep connection with his greatest patrons."

Six people took part in a 20-minute bidding battle, pushing the price up to what Sotheby's said was a record for a modern work of art. The auction house has not disclosed the buyer's identity.

History of the painting

Elisabeth Lederer was the daughter of industrial magnate August Lederer and his wife Serena, a Budapest-born grand-niece of the US journalist Joseph Pulitzer. 

The good news for the Lederers was that they were among Vienna's richest families – by one account, second only to the Rothschilds. Less fortunately, they were Jewish in a country that was about to be ruled by the Nazis. 

After the 1938 Anschluss annexed Austria into Germany, the Nazis looted the family's art collection. Most Jews, including August and Serena Lederer, fled Vienna – but Elisabeth stayed. 

She had converted to Protestantism in 1921 upon marriage to a baron, and although she switched back to Judaism after divorce in 1934, she avoided persecution by claiming Klimt was her father. She remained in Vienna until her death in 1944.

The looted portrait, which was almost destroyed by a fire during World War II, was returned in 1948 to Elisabeth's brother Erich. A friend of Egon Schiele, another Austrian painter to whom Klimt was a mentor, Erich kept the portrait for most of his life.

In 1985, it was acquired by Leonard A. Lauder, heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics company, who died earlier this year.

Several other works from Klimt were auctioned at the same event, including Flowering Meadow for $86 million and Forest Slope at Unterach am Attersee for $68.3 million.

Lauder's collection also included works from Edvard Munch, Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Matisse. In total, 24 lots from the collection generated $527.5 million.

The previous record for a Klimt sale was $108.8 million for Lady with a Fan, which sold in 2023 in London. Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer had been expected to sell around $150 million.

The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for $450 million in 2017. 

And the biggest irony? Klimt didn't like the painting, which he regarded as unsatisfactory and refused to give it to his patrons, preferring to keep revising it. According to one story, Serena Lederer walked out of his studio carrying it personally. Clearly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.