Gustav Klimt Portrait Fetches Record $236 Million at Sotheby’s
51Nov. 20, 2025
A full-length portrait by Austrian painterGustav Klimtthat had been estimated to sell for $150 million hammered for $236.4 million with fees at auction on November 18. The sale, atSotheby’snew headquarters at theBreuer Buildingin New York, set a slew of records. The amount is the highest ever paid at auction for a work by the Austrian artist; the highest ever commanded by a modern work of art at auction; and the second-highest ever achieved by any painting at auction, after the 2017 Christie’s sale of Leonardo’sSalvator Mundifor roughly $450 million.
TitledPortrait of Elisabeth Ledererand made between 1914 and 1916, the canvas was part of a trove of works belonging to cosmetics magnate and collector Leonard A. Lauder, who died this past June, and is thought to be one of only two full-length portraits by Klimt remaining in private hands. Commissioned by Klimt’s chief patrons, the painting depicts their twenty-year-old daughter clad in an imperial Chinese dragon robe. The work was confiscated by the Nazis but restituted in 1948. Lauder bought it in the mid-1980s from dealer Serge Sabarsky and hung it in his New York apartment, where it remained for nearly forty years.
The sale of the portrait, which opened at $130 million, was concluded in under twenty minutes and involved six bidders. Sotheby’s has not revealed the buyer’s identity.
“Tonight, we made history at the Breuer,” Helena Newman, Sotheby’s worldwide chairman of Impressionist and modern art and chairman of the auction house’s European operations, said in a statement. “To see Gustav Klimt’s exquisite portrait of Elisabeth Lederer set a new auction record for the artist is thrilling in itself; to see it become the most valuable work ever sold at Sotheby’s is nothing short of sensational. Klimt is one of those rare artists whose magic is as powerful as it is universal.”