Gustav Klimt portrait that spared its subject from Nazis breaks modern art record with $236M sale Arts Nov 19, 2025 1:00 PM EST

A Gustav Klimt portrait painting that helped save the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust sold Tuesday for $236.4 million, a record for a modern art piece.

Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold after a 20-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s in New York, where the flashiest item of the night was a solid gold, fully functioning toilet that went for $12.1 million.

The 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall) portrait, painted over three years between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of one of Vienna’s wealthiest families adorned in an East Asian emperor’s cloak. It is one of two full-length portraits by the Austrian artist that remain privately owned. Th

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