A Gustav Klimt painting sold for a historic $236.4 million Tuesday night at Sotheby’s first auction in its new home in New York’s Breuer building, making it the world’s most expensive modern artwork at auction and the second-priciest work of art ever auctioned overall.
“Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” is Klimt’s 1914-1916 painting of a woman standing in a shimmering white gown against a periwinkle backdrop, a lush work that now also ranks as the top work ever auctioned off by the 281-year-old auction house. The reigning titleholder remains a $450 million Leonardo da Vinci, “ Salvator Mundi ,” that Christie’s sold in 2017.
The Klimt now joins a rarefied group of art trophies that have sold for over $100 million, surpassing a $157.2 million Amedeo Modigliani “ Reclining Nude ” from 1917 and other examples by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso.
Its success will likely add momentum to an art market suddenly enjoying a turnaround after three sluggish years when collectors largely stayed home, in part because they were worried about global tariffs or war. Now, buyers seem willing to splurge on art again, especially when the houses offer up museum-worthy examples.
At least six bidders vied for the Klimt, with one telephone bidder only jumping in once the competition reached $171 million. Another telephone bidder eventually won the work, but only after a 20-minute bidding war that saw bids escalate in multimillion-dollar increments. When auctioneer Oliver Barker slammed down the gavel, collectors and dealers in the saleroom erupted in applause.
Chief executive Charles Stewart , watching from the sideline, said more than 25,000 people had turned up at the Breuer since the house opened its doors there last week, sometimes waiting in lines wrapping around the block. “People wanted their chance to see this picture,” Stewart said.
The previous record for any Klimt was $108.8 million and set in 2023 with the sale of the Austrian symbolist’s “Lady With a Fan,” a portrait of a mysterious seminude woman clutching a hand fan.
Before Tuesday’s sale, Sotheby’s said it only expected to get $150 million for “Elisabeth Lederer,” but the one-two punch of a rare Klimt combined with the reassuring provenance of cosmetics executive Leonard Lauder proved irresistible. Lauder, who died in June , was the consummate art-world tastemaker, a major donor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the former longtime chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art. As the elder scion of Estée Lauder, he and his younger brother Ronald Lauder —another fan of Klimt—were well known for their art collecting.
The Lauder pedigree also likely reassured collectors that the value and artistic merits of his works would hold up. Sotheby’s offered up 24 pieces in its evening sale from Lauder’s estate, expecting they would sell for about $379 million. Everything in the set sold on Tuesday for $528 million combined.
After the Lauder group, the house tried to settle down the celebratory crowd to compete for an entirely different group of newer artworks. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1981 “Crowns (Peso Neto),” proved to be the sale’s top piece, attracting at least three bidders and selling for $48.4 million, over its $45 million high estimate. An untitled Yves Klein blue sponge also fared well, selling for $19 million.
But an expected star of this younger set disappointed. “America,” a sculpture of a solid-gold toilet, was priced to sell for its weight in gold, which amounted to $9.9 million in gold markets on Tuesday. Sotheby’s kicked off the competition by rounding up its asking price to $10 million, but the piece only attracted a lone bid over the telephone. With Sotheby’s fees, that meant the toilet totaled $12.1 million.
The 18-carat toilet was created by Maurizio Cattelan—the same artist behind last year’s $6.2 million duct tape banana . After the sale, the house said the buyer was a famous American brand, but it declined to elaborate.
The gambit was whether collectors would be willing to pay significantly more for the artwork than merely the cost of the precious metals used to make it. As is, it appears to have tacked on an additional $2.1 million.
The toilet’s seller was hedge-fund billionaire and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, a longtime collector of Cattelan’s work who sold it in part because he had it in storage and felt like it should be installed properly somewhere, according to a person familiar with the deal.
Cattelan’s replica of a Kohler toilet was plumbed to actually flush, but Sotheby’s didn’t allow visitors to use it.
Still, the electric atmosphere of Sotheby’s packed saleroom echoed Christie’s $690 million sale the night before that kicked off New York’s bellwether week of fall auctions. Collectors at both houses competed hardest for tried-and-true artists whose works hailed from pedigreed estates. Such art carries the reassuring voucher of their previous owners yet feels fresh to the market after being tucked away in private hands, sometimes for decades.
Every one of Lauder’s pieces found buyers, for example. “Blooming Meadow,” Klimt’s wildflower field circa 1908, sold for $86 million. It was estimated to sell for at least $80 million. Another of Lauder’s Klimt scenes, 1916’s “Forest Slope in Unterach on the Attersee,” was estimated to sell for at least $70 million and sold for $70.8 million. Lauder’s love of Henri Matisse was also reinforced by bidders, with six of his Matisse bronzes selling for $49 million combined. The group was expected to sell for about $30 million.
Edvard Munch’s 1901-1903 “Midsummer Night,” a cheery scene of women walking along a winding path that Lauder’s parents bought in 1976 for their Palm Beach home, sold for $31.1 million. It was estimated to sell for $20 million.
Christie’s sale on Monday was led by Mark Rothko’s 1958 “No. 31 (Yellow Stripe),” which sold for $62.2 million to a telephone bidder, over its $50 million estimate. The Rothko hailed from the estate of Weis grocery-chain millionaires Robert and Patricia Weis, who also sold their Pablo Picasso “Reading (Marie-Thérèse)” for $45.5 million. The Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art sold a 1907 Claude Monet “Water Lilies” pondscape for $45.5 million, and a group of pieces by Joan Mitchell and others from the estate of casino magnate Elaine Wynn sold for $77.8 million.
Corrections & Amplifications undefined Edvard Munch’s 1901-1903 “Midsummer Night” sold for $31.1 million. An earlier version of this article incorrectly listed the buyer as Patti Wong. Also, the first name of cosmetics executive Leonard Lauder was omitted from an earlier version of this article. (Corrected on Nov. 18)
