{"id":294856,"date":"2025-11-20T06:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/294856\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T06:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:06:09","slug":"gustav-klimt-portrait-that-saved-jewish-subject-from-nazis-sells-for-record-breaking-332-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/294856\/","title":{"rendered":"Gustav Klimt portrait that saved Jewish subject from Nazis sells for record-breaking $332-million"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

This image provided by Sotheby’s shows Gustav Klimt’s ‘Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer’ (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer).Uncredited\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

A Gustav Klimt portrait painting that helped save the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust sold Tuesday for $332-million, a record for a modern art piece.<\/p>\n

Klimt\u2019s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold after a 20-minute bidding war at Sotheby\u2019s in New York, where the flashiest item of the night was a solid gold, fully functioning toilet that went for $17-million.<\/p>\n

The 1.8-metre-tall portrait, painted over three years between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of one of Vienna\u2019s wealthiest families adorned in an East Asian emperor\u2019s cloak. It is one of two full-length portraits by the Austrian artist that remain privately owned. The work was kept separate from other Klimt paintings that burned in a fire at an Austrian castle.<\/p>\n

The colourful painting depicts the Lederer family\u2019s life of luxury before Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. Nazis looted the Lederer art collection, leaving only the family portraits, which were considered \u201ctoo Jewish\u201d to be worth stealing, according to the National Gallery of Canada, where the painting was previously on loan.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to save herself, Elisabeth Lederer made up a story that Klimt, who was not Jewish and died in 1918, was her father. It helped that the artist spent years working meticulously on her portrait.<\/p>\n

With help from her former brother-in-law, a high-ranking Nazi official, she convinced the Nazis to give her a document stating that she descended from Klimt. That allowed her to remain safely in Vienna until she died of an illness in 1944.<\/p>\n

Klimt\u2019s ‘Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer’ sold at Sotheby\u2019s in New York after a 20-minute bidding war, also becoming the most expensive work of art ever sold by the fine art broker worldwide.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

The portrait was part of the collection of billionaire Leonard A. Lauder, heir to cosmetics giant The Est\u00e9e Lauder Companies. He died this year at 92, leaving behind an impressive collection worth more than $561-million.<\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s declined to share the identity of the portrait\u2019s buyer. The sale topped a previous record for 20th-century art set by an Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe, which sold for $273-million in 2022.<\/p>\n

Five Klimt pieces from Lauder\u2019s collection sold at the auction for a total of $392 million, Sotheby\u2019s said.<\/p>\n

Pieces by Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Edvard Munch were among other notable sales.<\/p>\n

Later in the evening, an 18-karat-gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan \u2013 the provocative Italian artist known for taping a banana to a wall \u2013 hit the auction block. Cattelan has said the 101-kg piece, titled America, satirizes superwealth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise,\u201d he once said.<\/p>\n

The toilet, owned by an unnamed collector, was one of two that Cattelan created in 2016. The other was displayed in 2016 at New York\u2019s Guggenheim Museum, which pointedly offered to lend it to U.S. President Donald Trump when he asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting.<\/p>\n

Then the piece was stolen while on display in England at Blenheim Palace, the country manor where Winston Churchill was born. Two men were convicted in the toilet heist, but it\u2019s unclear what they did with the loo. Investigators aren\u2019t privy to its whereabouts but believe it was likely broken up and melted down.<\/p>\n

America was exhibited at Sotheby\u2019s New York headquarters in the weeks leading up to the auction. Sotheby\u2019s called the commode an \u201cincisive commentary on the collision of artistic production and commodity value.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: This image provided by Sotheby’s shows Gustav Klimt’s ‘Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer’ (Portrait of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,75,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-294856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-entertainment","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}