Gustav Klimt's painting sold for Rs 2,095 crore, becomes most expensive modern artwork sold at auction

The portrait was one of only two full-length Klimt depictions still held privately. (Image: @Sothebys/X)

A portrait by Gustav Klimt achieved a record price at Sotheby’s in New York, selling for $236.4m (Rs 20,95,61,27,160 approximately) including fees, placing it as the second highest auction price ever recorded and the most expensive modern artwork sold at auction.

According to a report in The Guardian, the painting, Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, measured roughly six feet in height and was produced between 1914 and 1916. It depicted Lederer, the young heiress whose family were long-standing patrons of Klimt, wearing a robe of Chinese origin.

The work attracted six competing bidders and the contest continued for around 20 minutes during the Tuesday night sale. Sotheby’s did not disclose the identity of the purchaser.

The portrait carried a complex provenance. It had been seized by the Nazis and later nearly destroyed in a wartime fire, but was returned in 1948 to Lederer’s brother, Erich, who appeared frequently in works by Klimt’s friend Egon Schiele. Erich Lederer retained the painting for most of his life until selling it in 1983, two years before his death.

In 1985, the work entered the private collection of Leonard A. Lauder, the Estee Lauder heir. He kept the painting in his Fifth Avenue residence except during museum loans. Lauder, who died in June aged 92, regarded the portrait as the centrepiece of his holdings.

Emily Braun, the art historian who advised Lauder for nearly forty years, told CNN that the painting had occupied a central place in his daily routine. “He ate lunch whenever he was at home, and lunch would be at a little round table right by the painting,” she said.

The portrait was one of only two full-length Klimt depictions still held privately.

Before the auction, specialists anticipated that the work could exceed $150 million. The highest auction result in history remains Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which sold in 2017 for $450.3 million.