A monumental portrait by Gustav Klimt sold for US$236.3 million at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday night (18 Nov), drawing gasps and applause as it set new records for the Austrian artist, the auction house, and for any work of modern art ever sold at auction.
Titled Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914-16), the painting also became the second most expensive artwork ever auctioned, surpassing Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964), which brought in US$195 million at Christie’s in 2022. The all-time record remains Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, sold for US$450.3 million in 2017.
One of only two full-length Klimt portraits still in private hands, the painting was consigned by the estate of Leonard A. Lauder, longtime CEO and second-generation heir of the Estée Lauder cosmetics empire, who died in June. Before the sale, it hung for decades in his Fifth Avenue apartment and was on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Canada.
Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914-16) hammered at US$205 million
Leonard A. Lauder
Lot 8 | Gustav Klimt | Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer), oil on canvas (Auction record for the artist and modern art)
Executed in 1914-16
180.4 x 130.5 cm
Provenance:
- August and Serena Lederer, Vienna (commissioned from the artist in 1914 and acquired in 1916)
- Impounded in situ at Bartensteingasse 8 by Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz, 26 November 1938
- Seized by Landesgericht Wien and deposited at Kirchner & Co, Vienna, 10 December 1939
- Termination of seizure, 30 September 1948
- Restituted to Erich Lederer, Geneva in 1948 (son of Serena Lederer and brother of Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt, née Lederer)
- Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York (acquired from the above by 1983)
- Acquired from the above in December 1985 by the present owner
Estimate Upon Request (Expected to fetch in the region of US$150 million)
Hammer Price: US$205,000,000
Sold: US$236,360,000
Auction House: Sotheby's New York
Sale: Leonard A. Lauder, Collector | Evening Auction
Date: 18 November 2025
The crown jewel of New York’s marquee auction week in November, the Klimt portrait is expected to fetch in the region of US$150 million, poised to break the artist’s US$109 million auction record set by Lady with a Fan (1917-18) at Sotheby’s London in 2023.
Bidding opened at US$130 million inside Sotheby’s new headquarters in the Breuer building and escalated into a 20-minute contest involving at least six contenders. Five bid by phone; the sixth was Patti Wong, co-founder of art advisory firm Patti Wong & Associates and former International Chairman of Sotheby’s, bidding in person.
Early competition centered on Wong and two phone bidders represented by Sotheby’s specialists: Helena Newman (Chairman of Europe and Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide) and Grégoire Billault (Chairman of Contemporary Art). When Wong reached US$160 million, both exited. Julian Dawes (Head of Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide) then entered with a new client at US$165 million.
Wong dropped out at US$173 million, leaving Dawes to compete with David Galperin (Head of Contemporary Art in New York). The two went back and forth until Dawes secured the winning bid at US$205 million, with fees bringing the final price to US$236.3 million.
Julian Dawes (Head of Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide) won the prize for his client
Lady with a Fan (1917-18) | Sold for US$109 million at Sotheby’s London in 2023 (Previous auction record for the artist)
The result shattered Klimt’s previous auction record and marked a new high for any work of modern art sold at auction, toppling Pablo Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (Version "O"), which sold for US$179.4 million in 2015.
It also became Sotheby’s most expensive sale ever, overtaking Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu couché, which fetched US$157.2 million in 2018.
The updated top four most expensive paintings at auction:
- Leonardo da Vinci | Salvator Mundi | Sold: US$450,312,500, Christie's New York, 2017
- Gustav Klimt | Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer | Sold: US$236,360,000, Sotheby's New York, 2025
- Andy Warhol | Shot Sage Blue Marilyn | Sold: US$195,040,000, Christie's New York, 2022
- Pablo Picasso | Les Femmes d’Alger (Version "O") | Sold: US$179,365,000, Christie's New York, 2015
Leonardo da Vinci | Salvator Mundi | Sold: US$450,312,500, Christie's New York, 2017
Andy Warhol | Shot Sage Blue Marilyn | Sold: US$195,040,000, Christie's New York, 2022
Pablo Picasso | Les Femmes d’Alger (Version "O") | Sold: US$179,365,000, Christie's New York, 2015
Amedeo Modigliani | Nu couché | Sold: US$157,159,000, Sotheby's New York, 2018
Works by the Austrian master have long commanded top prices among serious collectors. In the early 20th century, Klimt was among Europe’s most sought-after portraitists, attracting a steady stream of commissions from wealthy families and commanding prices far higher than his contemporaries.
After Klimt’s death in 1918 at age 55, most of his paintings entered public collections, leaving few in private hands. His portraits have since become exceptionally rare – and highly prized when they appear on the market.
Never before offered at auction, Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer is among the artist’s most intricately conceived large-scale portraits. The only other known full-length Klimt portrait still held outside institutional collections, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912), was sold privately in 2017 by Oprah Winfrey to the Hong Kong gallery HomeArt, founded by prominent collector Rosaline Wong Wing-yue, for a reported US$150 million.
Gustav Klimt
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912), sold privately in 2017 by Oprah Winfrey
Painted between 1914 and 1916, the portrait depicts Elisabeth Lederer, the 20-year-old daughter of one of Klimt’s most important patrons. She stands in an imperial dragon robe, set against a backdrop of Chinese and Japanese iconography.
The Lederers, who built their fortune in the distillery and starch industries, were Vienna’s second-wealthiest family, surpassed only by the Rothschilds. As leading supporters of the Secessionist movement, they assembled the largest private collection of Klimt’s work, including the monumental Beethoven Frieze (1902), now the centerpiece of the Secession in Vienna.
Klimt painted three generations of Lederer women: Charlotte Pulitzer, her daughter Serena, and finally Elisabeth. Serena, a celebrated beauty and society grande dame, was the first to commission him in 1899; that portrait is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The portrait of Charlotte was later lost.
Portrait of Serena Lederer (1899) | Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
Serena with Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer
Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer
As with much of his late work, Klimt obsessed over every detail of the composition. According to Elisabeth, the process began with months of “making drawings in various positions,” followed by three years of sittings, during which he “changed his concept over and over.”
In the end, it was Serena who declared the painting complete. “She one day seized the picture, loaded it onto the car, and kidnapped it,” Elisabeth recalled. “When he saw it at home he said: ‘Now it is even less her!’” The portrait left the family’s collection only once, for the Austrian Art Exhibition in Stockholm in 1917.
When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Serena fled to Hungary, while Elisabeth remained in Vienna. In a bold attempt to survive, she alleged Klimt – who never married but fathered at least 14 children – was her biological father. Writing from exile, Serena supported the claim, swearing under oath that it was true.
Historians now agree the claim was fabricated. But the Reich Department for Genealogical Research accepted it. With her newly “half-Aryan” status, Elisabeth avoided deportation. She passed away in 1944, but the story – however false – offered temporary protection.
Close-up of Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer
Close-up of Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer
Serena and Elisabeth Lederer
After the war, both portraits – Serena’s and Elisabeth’s – resurfaced at auction at the Dorotheum in Vienna in 1948. Their brother, Erich Lederer, was able to halt the sale and secure their restitution.
In the 1980s, the painting was acquired from the Lederer family by Serge Sabarsky, the Austrian-American dealer who championed Viennese modernism in the United States. In 1985, Sabarsky sold the painting to Leonard A. Lauder, who kept it in his private collection until his death in June 2025.