Sotheby’s is set to auction a Gustav Klimt portrait, with expectations it could fetch more than $150 million, shattering the artist’s auction record. The artwork, “Portrait.
Sotheby’s is set to auction a Gustav Klimt portrait, with expectations it could fetch more than $150 million, shattering the artist’s auction record. The artwork, “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer”, is considered a late-career masterpiece and has a storied past, having survived Nazi looting and World War II. The six-foot-tall painting depicts Lederer, the daughter of Klimt’s wealthiest patrons, at age 20 in an ornate robe surrounded by Asian motifs. Completed two years before Klimt’s death in 1918, the painting spent decades out of public view, primarily hanging in the New York home of cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder until his death in June, per CNN.
