A painting by Gustav Klimt, which played a role in saving the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust, was sold at auction in New York City for $236.4 million US, including fees, setting a new record for a modern art piece. The portrait, known as Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, was the centerpiece of a 20-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s, also becoming the most expensive artwork ever sold by the fine art broker. Another highlight of the auction was a fully operational solid gold toilet that was purchased for $12.1 million.
The Klimt painting is one of only two full-length portraits by the Austrian artist that are in private hands and survived the events of the Second World War intact. Completed over a span of three years between 1914 and 1916, the artwork showcases the daughter of one of Vienna’s affluent families dressed in an East Asian emperor’s cloak. Notably, this particular painting was safeguarded from a fire that destroyed other Klimt works in an Austrian castle.
The vibrant portrait captures the opulent lifestyle of the Lederer family before Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938. When the Nazis plundered the Lederer art collection, only the family portraits were left behind since they were deemed “too Jewish” to be of value for looting. To protect herself, Elisabeth Lederer fabricated a story that Klimt, who was not Jewish and had passed away in 1918, was her father. Her claim was supported by the fact that the artist had dedicated years to meticulously creating her portrait.
Assisted by her former brother-in-law, a high-ranking Nazi official, Elisabeth managed to persuade the Nazis to issue a document certifying her as a descendant of Klimt. The painting was part of the collection owned by billionaire Leonard A. Lauder, heir to The Estée Lauder Companies, who passed away earlier this year. The identity of the buyer of the portrait remains undisclosed by Sotheby’s. The sale surpassed the previous record set for 20th-century art with the $195 million sale of an Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe in 2022.
In the same auction, a functional solid gold toilet named “America” by artist Maurizio Cattelan, known for his provocative art, fetched $12.1 million. Weighing 101 kilograms and made of 18-karat gold, the toilet satirizes extreme wealth. Cattelan described the piece as a commentary on the equality of all individuals in the act of using a toilet, regardless of their financial status. Sotheby’s characterized the work as a sharp critique on the intersection of art creation and commercial value.
This gold toilet, owned by an undisclosed collector, is not the only one created by Cattelan. Another one was famously displayed at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2016 and was later offered to President Donald Trump when he sought to borrow a Van Gogh painting. Subsequently, the piece was stolen while exhibited at Blenheim Palace in England, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. The loo thieves were convicted, but the whereabouts of the toilet remain unknown, with speculations that it may have been dismantled and melted down. “America” was on view at Sotheby’s New York headquarters before the auction took place.
