Rare Klimt painting becomes the most expensive work of modern art as it’s auctioned for $236.4m

A Gustav Klimt painting sold for a historic $236.4 million Tuesday night at Sotheby’s first auction in its new home in New York’s Breuer building, making it the world’s most expensive modern artwork at auction and the second-priciest work of art ever auctioned overall.

The “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,” reached an astonishing $236.4 million to gasps and applause from the room during a 20-minute bidding war. It also stands as the most expensive work of art ever sold by Sotheby’s globally.

The portrait of Klimt’s patrons’ young daughter, made in the last years of the artist’s life, was incredibly spared from destruction during World War II when it was separated from his works that later burned during a fire at Immendorf Castle in Austria.

The lot was described by the auctioneer, Sotheby’s European chairman Oliver Barker, as “really one of the last opportunities to acquire a portrait of this significance by the artist.”

This record significantly surpassed the price set by Klimt’s final completed portrait, “Dame mit Fächer” (Lady with a Fan),” which sold for $108.4 million in 2023.

The portrait of Lederer beat out a previous record set by an Andy Warhol work in 2022 and was part of the collection of Estée Lauder heir Leonard A. Lauder, who passed away earlier this year.

Across the sale, most artworks met or exceeded their high estimates, including an Edvard Munch painting at $35.1 million, and a Klimt landscape at $86 million. The tone was set from the very first lot, a sculpture by Alexander Calder that sold for nearly triple its high estimate at $889,000. So far, Lauder’s collection has fetched $527.5 million, well past its estimate of $400 million, with more pieces to be sold later.

Sales from the Lauder collection kicked off a triumphant night for the top end of the art market, which has been experiencing a slowdown for more than two years.

Following the Lauder sale, the contemporary sale was led by a monumental $48.3 million Jean-Michel Basquiat work. Significantly, however, two of the top lots—one by Kerry James Marshall and another by Barkley L. Hendricks—failed to sell, in a surprising divergence from the evening’s momentum.

In addition, the auction’s most unusual offering, the 220-pound, 18-karat gold toilet by the conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, only drew a single bid.

The opulent Golden toilet sculpture, titled “America,” is a sibling to the infamous version that was exhibited in the Guggenheim as a working toilet and later stolen from Blenheim Palace.

In a first, the starting bid for “America,” which has been in private hands since 2017, was ideated as a moving target according to the current value of its weight in gold, or $9.9 million, and rounded up to $10 million. The pricing was a way to “lean into the very essence of the conceptual basis behind the artwork,” according to David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art.

However, only one buyer, a “famous American brand,” per Sotheby’s—ended up making an offer, and no one followed.

With fees, it totaled $12.1 million, implying that bidders decided it wasn’t worth much more than its raw materials.

Marquee sales will continue to take place this week, with Sotheby’s hoping to take in more than $1 billion total by the end. The opening of Sotheby’s new headquarters, previously home to the Whitney Museum of American Art, signals a major shift, aligning itself just off the city’s famed Museum Mile.

This new chapter begins at a rocky time for the broader art market, as global sales of arts and antiques have fallen for a second consecutive year, according to the latest annual Art Market Report.

Despite the broader context of market slowdowns, Christie’s fared well during its two-part 20th-century sale on Monday evening, reaching $690 million with fees—a substantial increase from the prior year—led by a $62 million Mark Rothko painting.