Klimt’s $236M Dragon Robe Outsells Some Countries’ GDPs

KEY POINTS

•Gustav Klimt’s 'Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer' sold for $236.4 million at Sotheby’s auction in New York City.
•The six-foot painting depicts Elisabeth Lederer in an imperial Chinese Dragon Robe and was painted between 1914 and 1916.
•Six bidders fought for 19 minutes, pushing the price well beyond its $150 million estimate.
•The artwork was looted by Nazis during WWII but escaped destruction unlike other pieces in the Lederer family collection.

At Sotheby's New York Breuer Building, Gustav Klimt’s six-foot-tall 'Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer' strutted off the auction stage for a staggering $236.4 million, making it the priciest modern artwork and second only to auction legends ever. Painted during WWI between 1914-1916, it depicts Lederer draped in an imperial Chinese Dragon Robe—because nothing screams Austro-Hungarian aristocracy like borrowing from ancient China. Six bidders went cage-match on the phone for 19 nail-biting minutes, crushing the $150 million estimate. Fun plot twist: Nazis looted the painting during World War II but miraculously, this canvas escaped the fiery fate that destroyed other Klimts in Lederers' collection. Sotheby's must have been sweating bullets with this history on their hands.