Six feet tall and looted by Nazis, this modern art painting has become the most expensive work in the era. Made by the celebrated Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, this became one of the highlights at the Sotheby’s auction on Tuesday night (local time) in New York. Being sold for over $236 million, the portrait also became the world’s second-most expensive painting, after Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.
Titled the ‘Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,’ six bidders battled for the Austrian modern art piece. Within 20 minutes, the piece was sold to an undisclosed buyer. Also became Sotheby’s most expensive artwork; the portrait was one of the crown jewels of the Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder’s collection.
More about ‘Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer’
This Klimt portrait was looted by the Nazis and was nearly destroyed in a fire during the Second World War. But it was returned to Lederer’s brother Erich and remained in his possession for most of his life. Two years before he died in 1983, he sold the painting. In 1985, the painting became a significant part of the Estée Lauder home in New York. It was displayed prominently in their Fifth Avenue home. It was also lent to several galleries for brief periods.
This Klimt painting is just one of the two full-length portraits that remain in private hands. Made with oil paints, it immortalised the daughter of a prominent art patron, August Lederer. The subject is seen in a sheer floral dress draped in an authentic 19th-century imperial Chinese dragon robe. Often a ceremonial garment reserved for emperors, it exudes both regality and sensuality.
As per Sotheby’s, it aims to blend both East and West with an Asian-influenced backdrop adorned with soldiers, courtiers, celestial motifs, and other tapestry-like elements. There are several other signature Klimt elements, like the confluence of sensuality and global representation, which also showcase the cosmopolitan and acute depth.
‘America’- A striking feature at the auction
Famously known for taping a banana to the wall, artist Maurizio Cattelan made waves at the Sotheby’s auction again. Making a fully functional toilet out of solid Gold, he had titled it ‘America’. Weighing over 100 kgs, the artwork was sold for $12 million, much less than the Klimt.
A satirical take on Western capitalism, this was one of the two toilets Cattelan created in 2016. Displayed at the New York Guggenheim Museum, it was famously offered for loan to President Donald Trump after he requested a Van Gogh painting. Later, when the work was displayed at England’s Blenheim Palace, Winston Churchill’s birthplace, it was stolen in a bold heist. Two men were eventually convicted, but what happened to the golden toilet afterwards, still remains a mystery.
