A painting by Gustav Klimt became the second most expensive piece of art ever sold at an auction, DW reports.
Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold on Tuesday after a 20-minute bidding war between six bidders at Sotheby’s in New York.
Five Klimt pieces from the collection sold at the auction for a total of $392 million (around €339 million), Sotheby’s said. The “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” fetched $236.4 million alone.
Sotheby’s did not reveal the identity of the portrait’s buyer.
The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the “Salvator Mundi,” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci — though some art historians doubt this attribution.
The portrait painted by Klimt between 1914 and 1916 is known to have helped save the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust.
The 1.8-meter-tall artwork shows the daughter of Klimt’s main patron, a member of one of Vienna’s wealthiest families, dressed in Chinese-inspired clothing, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs.
The painting depicts the luxurious life led by the Lederer family before the Nazis took over Austria in 1938.
