Stolen Art DealerKlimt’s full-length portrait of a young woman with dark bobbed hair, standing in a white lace shawl and pale gown on an orange carpet. Behind her fans out a blue and floral East Asian-style robe, and small East Asian figures fill the blue-green background at the edges.
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Catalogue No. 12 · Sotheby’s · New York
Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer
Sold for
$236.4million
Sotheby’s, New York · 18 November 2025 · 2nd of 392 in the Record Book
Confirmed by two sourcesAbout $245.7 million in today’s money: 2,800 years of the typical US household’s income. Source
- Artist
- Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862–1918)
- Title
- Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer)
- Date
- 1914–16
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 180.4 × 130.5 cm (71 × 51⅜ in)
Look closer
Elisabeth’s face
Her pale face is the focus of the portrait, set against the darker ground. It belongs to a woman who, in 1939, petitioned to have Klimt recognised as her real father.
Elisabeth Lederer’s parents, August and Serena, were among Klimt’s most important patrons. They commissioned her portrait in 1914 and acquired it in 1916.
Elisabeth was Jewish. In November 1938 the portrait was impounded in the family’s Vienna home, and in December 1939 it was seized. In 1939 Elisabeth petitioned to have Klimt recognised as her real father, and her mother signed a document backing the claim. Sotheby’s calls it “a life-saving fiction”. Klimt’s paternity was never established.
Elisabeth died of illness in 1944. In May 1945 other Lederer Klimts burned at Schloss Immendorf; Sotheby’s says this portrait narrowly escaped that fate. It went back to her brother Erich in 1948, and Leonard Lauder bought it in 1985.
At Sotheby’s New York on 18 November 2025, six bidders competed for about 20 minutes. It sold for $236.4 million including the buyer’s premium, roughly double Klimt’s previous auction record. Sotheby’s calls it the second most valuable work of art ever sold at auction.
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The sale
- Auction house
- Sotheby’s, New York
- Date
- 18 November 2025
- Lot
- 8
- Sold for
- $236.4 million (including buyer’s premium)
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Provenance
1914–1916
According to Sotheby’s provenance, August and Serena Lederer of Vienna commissioned the portrait from Klimt in 1914 and acquired it in 1916. Reported
26 November 1938
According to Sotheby’s provenance, the portrait was impounded in place in the Lederer home in Vienna by the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz. Reported
10 December 1939
According to Sotheby’s provenance, it was seized by the Landesgericht Wien and deposited at Kirchner & Co., Vienna. Reported
1939–1945
It was not among the Lederer paintings moved to Schloss Immendorf, which were destroyed in a fire in May 1945.
1948
The seizure was terminated on 30 September 1948, and the portrait was restituted to Elisabeth’s brother, Erich Lederer, in Geneva.
By 1983
Acquired from Erich Lederer by the Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York.
December 1985
Acquired from the Sabarsky Gallery by Leonard A. Lauder, New York, who kept it for about forty years.
18 November 2025
Sold from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection at Sotheby’s New York (lot 8) for $236.4 million including premium. It was the portrait’s first appearance at auction.
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Sources
- Sotheby’s lot page: Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer, lot 8
- Sotheby’s: $236.4 Million Klimt Portrait Sets Records as Sotheby’s Inaugurates the Breuer
- Sotheby’s: Historic Night at Sotheby’s, Leonard A. Lauder Collection totals $527.5m
- AP via NBC DFW: Gustav Klimt portrait sells for record $236.4 million
- Klimt Database: The Lederer Family
Prices include the buyer’s premium, in US dollars at the time of sale, unless marked as a hammer price.
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