Klimt Portrait Sets $236.4 Million Auction Record

A Gustav Klimt portrait fetched a record $236.4 million at Sotheby's auction in New York on November 18, marking the highest price ever paid for a modern artwork at auction and the second-highest for any painting, behind only Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" at $450.3 million in 2017.

The full-length canvas, titled "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer," depicts the daughter of one of Klimt's prominent Viennese patrons, dressed in an opulent Chinese imperial robe. Painted between 1914 and 1916 during the final years of the Austrian artist's life, the work exemplifies his late style with elongated figures, vibrant golds, and Art Nouveau influences. At six feet tall, it is one of only two such Klimt portraits remaining in private hands, the other being "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I."

The sale stemmed from the estate of Leonard A. Lauder, the late heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics fortune and a renowned collector who died in June at age 92. Lauder acquired the painting in the mid-1980s and kept it in his New York apartment for nearly four decades, largely out of public view. Five other Klimt works from his collection sold at the auction for a total of $392 million, contributing to...