Summary • Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” (1914–16) sold for $236.4 million USD at Sotheby’s inaugural Breuer Buildin sale, making history as the second most expensive artwork and the most expensive modern artwork ever sold at auction. • Bringing a total of $706 million USD, the two-part auction saw the highest single-evening sale in the house’s history.

Sotheby’s christened its new New York Breuer Building headquarters last night with a record-breaking debut, delivering the highest single-evening total in the company’s history. Tallying an astonishing $706 million USD — more than twice the sum achieved at its comparable sales last year — the sale signaled signaled momentum in a previously shrinking art market.

Headlining the sale was Gustav Klimt’s six-foot-tall “Port

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