Just days after another work from the late Austrian artist sold for $236 million<\/a> on auction at Sotheby’s, Streisand lamented parting ways with her own Klimt.<\/p>\n \u201cMy longtime assistant made me a book of art that I\u2019ve loved and sold. One of them was this painting of Miss Ria Munk on her Deathbed by Gustav Klimt that I bought in 1969 for $17,000, which seemed like a lot of money at the time,\u201d Streisand, 83, wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday, Nov. 20.<\/p>\n \u201cI sold it in 1998 because I became interested in Frank Lloyd Wright and the Arts & Crafts movement. Oh how I regret selling her.\u00a0 As the title of the book says, \u2018You should never sell art you love,\u2019 \u201d she concluded the caption.<\/p>\n Streisand\u2019s post included a black and white photo of her sitting beside the painting.<\/p>\n Fine Art Images\/Heritage Images\/Getty <\/p>\n Barbra Streisand once owned ‘Ria Munk on her Deathbed’ by Gustav Klimt<\/p>\n Two days before the \u201cEvergreen\u201d singer reminisced about the artwork, New York auction house Sotheby\u2019s sold Klimt\u2019s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” for the eye-popping, nine-figure amount, making it the second-most expensive piece of art to be sold at auction, according to ARTnews,<\/a>\u00a0The New York Times<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n The price also set a record for an amount fetched by a Klimt.<\/p>\n The painting had been owned by late billionaire Leonard A. Lauder, the cosmetics company heir and art collector who also owned pieces by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Evard Munch, among others.<\/p>\n The National Gallery of Canada, where the painting was on loan for many years, has an account of the the artwork’s history.<\/p>\n \u201cGustav Klimt\u2019s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, painted over three years between 1914 and 1916, is an imposing, dazzling painting that speaks of the power, elegance and confidence of Vienna\u2019s high society in the early 20th century,” according to an article on the museum’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Imagno\/Getty <\/p>\n Gustav Klimt in 1917.<\/p>\n “Those qualities are revealed here both explicitly and more covertly: in the sitter\u2019s expression of calm self-assurance, for example, as well as in semi-concealed symbols surrounding the central figure.\u201d<\/p>\n Remarkably, the painting \u2014 and the family\u2019s relationship to Klimt, who painted several Lederers \u2014 helped save Elisabeth’s life after the Nazis annexed Austria in the 1930s, according to the article.<\/p>\n Elisabeth, who was Jewish, \u201ccirculated the story that Klimt, who was non-Jewish and had died in 1918, was her real father\u2026.Elisabeth\u2019s mother, Szerena, willingly signed an affidavit attesting to Klimt\u2019s paternity in order to save her daughter. The scheme worked and the Nazi regime provided Elisabeth with a document stating that she was descended from Klimt.”<\/p>\n “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” was initially supposed to fetch around $150 million, PEOPLE previously reported.<\/p>\n![\"Fine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/904ff29224e3499963a0fb53fc4a5ab1.jpeg\"\/)
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