‘Most expensive modern work of art ever at auction’, CNN reported. ‘The night of modern art history‘, said The New York Times. The superlatives that were sent into the world on Wednesday evening after the first art auction of Sotheby’s New York this fall were considerable: the painting Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by Gustav Klimt, painted between 1914 and 1916, had fetched $236.4 million (including auction costs).
But what does such a record amount actually mean? Major art auctions have been reported since the record-breaking late 1980s for Vincent van Goghs Sunflowers described as a kind of seismograph of the art world, as if the broad lines of art history are determined not in the art history books but in the auction room. So: can the sales of this, until recently, barely known painting indeed reveal trends?
Before the Viennese painter Klimt can immediately be given a new status, the record must first be put into perspective. The record for Klimt only concerns the auction world, it is the most expensive modern work of art at auctionand the next one most expensive auctioned painting everafter the Salvator Mundi in 2017 (at the time $450.3 million, despite lingering doubts about Leonardo da Vinci as the creator). But Klimt’s painting ultimately came ‘only’ in tenth place of the most expensive paintings in the world, if paintings in private sales and the inflation adjustment are also taken into account. In that list, Klimt is still behind modern masters such as Cézanne, Gaugain and Picasso.
Crowd favorite
Klimt is now the only painter with two canvases in this top ten of most expensive paintings – while he also set a European auction record in 2023 with his Lady with fan. This is admittedly not a real break in the highest prize category: Western European modern art from the early 20th century has long dominated this category, and they are all artists who also have the stamp of approval from the art historical world. But compared to other modern artists in those lists, Klimt is rather a cautious innovator. Klimt has been a crowd favorite on art posters for decades (The Kiss), but the more progressive part of the art world thought he was a bit too sweet, too golden, too beautiful for a long time. In the 21st century, when modernist innovation has become less important, that assessment has softened. You could say: its higher art historical status has in recent years interacted with new millions on the market. The BBC even writes lyrically how Klimt in this portrait is nothing less than “Botticellis Birth of Venus reinvents for a new era“.
Klimt’s elevated art historical status has interacted with new millions on the market in recent years
The story surrounding the painting shows how exciting stories surrounding the origins of art are being used increasingly effectively by the major auction houses as PR. In 1914, the Jewish industrialist Lederer asked the famous painter Klimt to make the portrait of his 20-year-old daughter Elisabeth, Klimt completed it two years before his death. The canvas was then stolen by the Nazis in 1938, and Elisabeth herself died penniless in 1944 of an illness. But the canvas was returned to the family in 1948 and in 1985 it entered the collection of billionaire Leonard Alan Lauder, one of the heirs of the famous cosmetics company Esthée Lauder. Part of Lauder’s collection, who died in mid-2025, was auctioned on Wednesday. Due to this story of tragedy and return, the work received a lot of attention prior to the auction.
Unknown buyer
The question then remains which buyer will be able to make a mark on these kinds of developments in the art world with hundreds of millions of dollars. The identity of the buyer has not yet been revealed; after 20 minutes between six bidders, the highest bid was made by telephone. One thing is certain: the list of most expensive paintings is currently dominated by wealthy Saudis, Qataris and a Russian. The Salvator Mundi was bought by a Saudi prince; the work was supposedly intended for a new Saudi museum, but has never been seen again until now.
And the auction record price therefore says something about the most pragmatic law of supply and demand. The Sotheby’s auctioneer said it before the bidding: this sale “is one of the last opportunities to [portret] of this meaning of the artist.” The race for fewer and fewer available art treasures is being waged among an increasingly smaller group of extremely wealthy buyers – and Klimt is now a new winner. In the coming weeks, with the results of the next autumn auctions, it will become clear who else benefits.
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