{"id":295671,"date":"2025-11-19T21:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/295671\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T21:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:50:09","slug":"portrait-of-elisabeth-lederer-sells-for-us236-4-million-at-sothebys-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/295671\/","title":{"rendered":"Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sells for $US236.4 million at Sotheby&#8217;s auction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington: A World War I-era painting by Austrian master Gustav Klimt has sold for $US236.4 million ($366 million) in New York, making it the second most expensive painting ever sold at auction, and breaking the record for a modern artwork.<\/p>\n<p>Klimt\u2019s six-foot tall Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which depicted the daughter of one of Vienna\u2019s wealthiest families, sold for $US205 million ($317 million) under the hammer, plus fees, after a 20-minute bidding war.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Painted between 1914 and 1916, the portrait played a role in Elisabeth Lederer\u2019s deception of the Nazis after Austria was annexed in the 1930s.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/3365faa4a6af761d81d7495369fcf2adfbf155ce.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Painted between 1914 and 1916, the portrait played a role in Elisabeth Lederer\u2019s deception of the Nazis after Austria was annexed in the 1930s.Credit: Sotheby\u2019s via AP<\/p>\n<p>It helped deliver Sotheby\u2019s its highest ever total for a single auction night, $US706 million, driven chiefly by billionaire Est\u00e9e Lauder heir Leonard Lauder\u2019s collection, which netted more than $US527 million.<\/p>\n<p>Lauder\u2019s collection, including several Klimts, Matisses, Piccasos, a van Gogh and an Edvard Munch, generally outsold price estimates. Lauder died in June, aged 92.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Gustav Klimt\u2019s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold for $US236.4 million including fees.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/8db1f1792bfb9dfbcca3cfe2f7958f49270a72ae.jpeg\" height=\"425\" width=\"283\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Gustav Klimt\u2019s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold for $US236.4 million including fees.Credit: Ben Sklar<\/p>\n<p>The audience cheered as the price for Lederer hit $US200 million, and again, with greater gusto, when the hammer finally came down. \u201cThat is a record for any work of art ever sold at Sotheby\u2019s \u2013 somewhat unsurprisingly, of course \u2013 and also the highest price for any modern work of art ever sold at auction,\u201d said auctioneer Oliver Barker.<\/p>\n<p>The colourful painting depicts the Lederer family\u2019s life of luxury before Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. Elisabeth, as a Jewish divorcee, was in grave danger. Ultimately, the painting helped save her life.<\/p>\n<p>She penned a memoir about her young life which falsely claimed Klimt, not August Lederer, as her biological father. \u201cAfter various types of examinations, Elisabeth was recognised as the artist\u2019s illegitimate daughter and therefore as possessing some of his \u2018Aryan\u2019 blood,\u201d Sotheby\u2019s said.<\/p>\n<p>The Nazis, possibly seeing the family portraits as \u201ctoo Jewish\u201d looking, put them in storage instead of displaying them as they did with the other seized paintings from the Lederer collection. The portraits were returned to the family after the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington: A World War I-era painting by Austrian master Gustav Klimt has sold for $US236.4 million ($366 million)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-295671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}