NEW YORK, Nov 19 — A portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetched US$236.4 million (RM981 million) in New York yesterday, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
Six bidders battled for 20 minutes over the “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer,” which Klimt painted between 1914 and 1916.
The piece depicts the daughter of Klimt’s main patron dressed in a white imperial Chinese dress, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs.
Sotheby’s, which managed the sale, did not disclose the identity of the buyer.
The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the “Salvator Mundi,” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for US$450 million in 2017.
“Full-length society portraits of this impressive scale and from Klimt’s pinnacle period (1912-17) are exceptionally rare; the majority in major museum collections,” Sotheby’s said of yesterday’s sale.
“The painting offered this evening was one of only two such commissioned portraits remaining in private hands,” it added in a statement.
For Klimt, the past auction record for his work was held by “Lady with a Fan,” which sold for £85.3 million in London in 2023.
Tomorrow, a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo has a good chance of setting a record for a female artist when it goes on sale, also at Sotheby’s in New York.
Estimated at US$40 to US$60 million, the 1940 piece called “The Dream (The Bed)” shows the Mexican painter sleeping in a bed overshadowed by a large skeleton.
The most expensive painting by a female artist sold to date is a 1932 work by American Georgia O’Keeffe, which fetched US$44.4 million in 2014.
The record for Frida Kahlo is another self-portrait from 1949, “Diego and I,” which sold for US$34.4 million in New York. — AFP
