Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait - The New York Times The New York Times Art & Design |Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait Search Continue reading the main story A dazzling gold-flecked 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased for the Neue Galerie in Manhattan by the cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, the highest sum ever paid for a painting. The portrait, of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist and the hostess of a prominent Vienna salon, is considered one of the artist's masterpieces. For years, it was the focus of a restitution battle between the Austrian government and a niece of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer who argued that it was seized along with four other Klimt paintings by the Nazis during World War II. In January all five paintings were awarded to the niece, Maria Altmann, now 90, who lives in Los Angeles, and other family members. Although confidentiality agreements surrounding the sale forbid Mr.

Lauder to disclose the price, experts familiar with the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he paid $135 million for the work. In a telephone interview Mr. Lauder did not deny that he had paid a record amount for the painting, eclipsing the $104.1 million paid for Picasso's 1905 "Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)" in an auction at Sotheby's in 2004. "This is our Mona Lisa," said Mr. Lauder, a founder of the five-year-old Neue Galerie, a tiny museum at Fifth Avenue and 86th Street devoted entirely to German and Austrian fine and decorative arts. "It is a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition." He said Christie's had helped him negotiate the purchase. Continue reading the main story For most of the last 60 years the portrait has hung in the Austrian Gallery in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna near "The Kiss," another gold-flecked Klimt masterpiece of the Art Nouveau era. With its sinuous lines and intricate details, the painting, "Adele Bloch-Bauer I," was commissioned by the subject's husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. Mrs.

Bloch-Bauer died of meningitis in 1925 at 43. In her will she requested that the painting and four others by Klimt that the couple owned be left to Austria upon her husband's death. But when Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, Mr. Bloch-Bauer fled, leaving all of his possessions behind. The Nazi government confiscated his property, placed three of the paintings in the Austrian Gallery and sold the rest. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Before Mr. Bloch-Bauer died, in November 1945, having spent the war years in Switzerland, he revoked all previous wills and drafted a new one. Since he and Adele had no children, he left his entire estate to three children of his brother Gustav: Robert, Luise and Maria. Of the three, only Maria Altmann is still living: she and her husband, Fritz, fled Austria during the war and settled in Los Angeles in 1942. She has a niece and two nephews; a cousin of her brother's second wife also survives. In a telephone interview on Friday Mrs. Altmann said she had met Mr.

Lauder, a former American ambassador to Austria, some years ago and that she had visited the Neue Galerie when it first opened in November 2001. "Mr. Lauder has a great understanding of Austria and a great love for Klimt," she said, adding that neither she nor her relatives felt it was practical for any of them to keep the painting, which depicts her aunt, whom she remembers from her childhood but who died when she was just 9. That Mrs. Altmann and her relatives have possession of the painting is a tale of perseverance and tenacity. After the war the family tried to regain their stolen possessions, including the paintings, porcelains, palaces and the sugar company founded by Mr. Bloch-Bauer. Much of the artwork was divided up among the top Nazis, including Hitler and Hermann Göring; Reinhardt Hedrick, a Nazi commander, occupied a summer palace owned by Mr. Bloch-Bauer outside Prague. The heirs were able to recover some of the works, but the Austrian authorities ruled that Mrs. Bloch-Bauer's will had essentially bequeathed the Klimts to Austria. Without access to the original documents, the family had no case.

By the mid-1980's journalists had begun investigating the restitution claim, and in 1998 Hubertus Czernin, a Viennese journalist researching the case for The Boston Globe, was able to find the documents, including Mrs. Bloch-Bauer's will, which expressed a wish — but did not require — that the Klimts go to Austria. Photo A detail from Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait "Adele Bloch-Bauer I." Credit Museum Associates/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images In 2000 Mrs. Altmann and the other heirs sued the Austrian government in the United States. Austria went to court to seek a dismissal of the suit, and the case wended its way to the United States Supreme Court, which in June 2004 ruled that Mrs. Altmann could sue Austria in the United States. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In January an arbitration tribunal in Austria decided in favor of Mrs. Altmann and her fellow heirs, awarding them the five paintings.

In addition to "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" they include a second portrait of Adele, from 1911, and three landscapes: "Beechwood" (1903), "Apple Tree I" (circa 1911) and "Houses in Unterach on Lake Atter" (1916). After the settlement, Steven Thomas, the lawyer representing the Bloch-Baur heirs, said he had been approached by museums and collectors around the world who were interested in buying one or more of the paintings. Mrs. Altmann said he had felt especially receptive to Mr. Lauder because throughout all the years the family was struggling to reclaim the art, he consistently kept in touch with her, offering to help in any way he could. "He was incredibly generous and constantly supportive," she said. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy In April Mrs. Altmann and her heirs lent the paintings to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where they remain on view through June 30.

Then the five works will travel to the Neue Galerie, where "Gustav Klimt: Five Paintings From the Collection of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer" will be on view from July 13 through Sept. 18. Mrs. Altmann said that when the gold portrait of her aunt finally hangs in the Neue Galerie, she will feel that it is finally where it belongs. The painting, which took Klimt three years to create, shows her aunt regally posed, with a mysterious gaze, sensuous red lips and her hands twisted near her face to conceal a deformed finger. He used gold throughout the richly painted background and in the glistening fabric of Adele's patterned gown. Art historians and chroniclers of Vienna society in the early 20th century have suggested that the artist and Ms. Bloch-Bauer were lovers. "I never saw her smile," Mrs. Altmann recalled in Friday in the interview. "She was always very serious and wore flowing white dresses and carried a gold cigarette holder when it was very unusual for women to smoke. She would have loved to have been a woman of today, to go to university and to get involved in government." Mrs.

Bloch-Bauer was known for giving frequent parties and surrounding herself with many of the great artists, politicians and intellectuals of the day, among them the composer Richard Strauss. "She didn't have teas for ladies like my mother," Ms. Altmann said. That wasn't down her alley." She said although Adele was very close to Mrs. Altmann's mother, Therese, she also seemed to resent her at times because Therese had a house full of healthy children and Adele had endured three tragic births. (One child died three days after it was born, and two others died within hours.) She remembers asking her mother about the rumored love affair between Klimt and her aunt. "My mother got mad and said, 'How dare you ask such a thing? It was an intellectual friendship,' " she recalled. "But I think it was very possible there was a romance." Of Klimt, who died in 1918, when Ms. Altmann was just a toddler, she remembers hearing that he often wore a floor-length smock with nothing underneath. Advertisement Continue reading the main story After Adele died, seven years after Klimt, her husband created a kind of shrine to her in what had been their bedroom.

"The Klimts were always in the bedroom, but after she died, the bed was removed and there were always fresh flowers," Mrs. Altmann said. As for the other four paintings, experts estimate that they are together worth some $100 million. The fate of these four has yet to be determined. "I can't decide," Mrs. Altmann said. "Maybe after they leave the Neue Galerie, they will go to Christie's. I very much hope they end up in museums. But for now I am just happy they have a home at the Neue Galerie. It is very deserved. I couldn't have wished for a better place." Correction: June 27, 2006 An article in The Arts on June 19 about the purchase of "Adele Bloch-Bauer I," a portrait by Gustav Klimt, for the Neue Galerie by Ronald S. Lauder misstated the context in which an Austrian journalist uncovered crucial documents about the work in 1998. The journalist, Hubertus Czernin, was conducting independent research in Austria when he found a will by Ms.

Bloch-Bauer mentioning the portrait; he was not researching the case for The Boston Globe. (Austria turned over the painting this year to a niece of Ms. Bloch-Bauer, Maria Altmann of Los Angeles, who sold it to Mr. Lauder.) A version of this article appears in print on , on Page E7 of the New York edition with the headline: Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Gustav Klimt Painting Sells For A Record $135 Million Contact Gustav Klimt Painting Sells For A Record $135 Million Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907. Oil, silver, and gold on canvas. 55 1/8 x 55 1/8 in. (140 x 140 cm). Estate of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. NEW YORK.- Ronald S.

Lauder, cosmetics tycoon, billionaire and founder of the New York Museum Neue Galerie, has acquired Gustav Klimtï¿½s Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I made in 1907. The businessman reportedly paid the highest sum ever paid for a work of art $135 million. Picasso's Boy With a Pipe, which fetched $104.1m (ï¿½56.3m) in 2004, holds the record for art sold at auction. The Klimt sale was subject to a confidentiality agreement but family lawyer Steven Thomas confirmed it had exceeded the Picasso record, reported the BBC. The portrait was sold by Block-Bauer's niece, Maria Altmann, who was able to claim the painting as hers only this past January, reported Forbes magazine. Along with this painting, four others were stolen by the Nazis in 1938. Klimt's 1907 portrait of his patron and rumoured lover was taken in 1938 in the Hermann Goering-led plunder of art by the Nazis.

It eventually found its way into the Belvedere Museum in Vienna and was the subject of a rancorous eight year battle between the Austrian government and the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer, reported the Guardian. The paintings were returned to their rightful owners in January and were then thought to cost more than 150 million. The collection has been on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art since April and will remain there until June 30. A press release from the Los Angeles County Museum states: As the leading exponent of Viennese Jugendstil in painting, Klimts most memorable works included his dazzling portraits of Viennas leading society ladies, many of whom were Jewish. One of the best known of these is his magnificent 1907 painting, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, portraying the wife of the industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer (the aunt of Maria Altmann). Foremost among the rare gold style works, the painting captures its elegant and intelligent subject as the ideal of feminine beauty.

The figure dissolves into sumptuous patterning reminiscent of the Byzantine mosaics at Ravenna, Italy, portraying the Empress Theodora, which Klimt had visited in 1903. Klimts fine craftsmanship in this work is evident in his varied uses of real gold: as a diffuse background luster reminiscent of Japanese lacquer, as the fabric of a flowing gown, and as a pattern punctuated with Egyptian gods-eye motifs. In contrast with this rich decorative treatment, Adeles face stands out as an extraordinarily modern psychological portrayal, while her hands are arranged gracefully to conceal a deformed finger. Self-assured yet introspective, she comports herself as a woman of privilege devoted to the world of the intellect. Transcending the customary role of women at the time, Adele hosted a salon, a regular social gatherings of artists, writers, musicians, and progressive politicians who discussed the issues of the day. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only woman whose portrait was painted twice by Klimt. In Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II the artist abandoned the iconic ambience and gold decoration of the first portrait in favor of a more modern approach to color.

The vivid colors are applied spontaneously, yet with a strong compositional sense. An Asian motif can be seen in the upper background. If you would like to know more about Klimtï¿½s life and important dates in his career please visit: Today's News BBC NEWS | Entertainment | 'Record price' for Klimt portrait 'Record price' for Klimt portrait Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist A portrait by Gustav Klimt that was looted by Nazis during World War II has reportedly sold for a record price. The New York Times said the city's Neue Galerie paid $135m (ï¿½73m) for the oil painting in a private sale. The portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was sold after a court ordered the Austrian government to return the 1907 painting to Ms Bloch-Bauer's heir in January. Picasso's Boy With a Pipe, which fetched $104.1m (ï¿½56.3m) in 2004, holds the record for art sold at auction.

The Klimt sale was subject to a confidentiality agreement but family lawyer Steven Thomas confirmed it had exceeded the Picasso record. The Neue Galerie, a New York museum of German and Austrian art, was co-founded by cosmetics mogul Ronald S Lauder. Ms Bloch-Bauer's niece Maria Altmann, 90, said: "It was important for the heirs and for my aunt Adele that her work be displayed in a museum." Maria Altmann's family fled Austria when the Nazis took power The portrait and four other looted Klimt pictures had been displayed in a gallery in Vienna for more than 60 years. They were returned to Ms Altmann earlier this year after a protracted legal battle. Ms Bloch-Bauer died in 1925, but her family was forced to flee Austria when the Nazis took power. A 1998 law in Austria required museums to return art seized by the Nazis. Austria believed it was entitled to the paintings because Ms Bloch-Bauer had specified in her will that her husband should donate the works to an Austrian gallery upon his death. But Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who died in exile in 1945, wanted them to go to his family.

Arbitration Ms Altmann filed legal action in the US in 2000 but the Austrian government repeatedly tried to have the case dismissed. In 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in Ms Altmann's favour and, following arbitration, the Austrian government awarded all five paintings to Ms Altmann and her family in January. Last year, the family received $21m (ï¿½12m) as part of a settlement to compensate victims of the Nazis. The paintings will go on display at the Neue Galerie next month. Mr Lauder called it a "once-in-a-lifetime acquisition". Born in 1862, Art Nouveau master Klimt is one of Austria's most celebrated painters. His renowned painting The Kiss (1908) hangs in the Belvedere gallery in Vienna. Portrait Of Adele Bloch Bauer I 0 0 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is a painting by the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt completed in 1907. Its subject, Adele Bloch-Bauer, is the only woman Klimt painted more than once. The work is currently the world’s third-most expensive painting.

According to press reports it was sold for US$135 million to Ronald Lauder for his Neue Galerie in New York City in June 2006, making it the most expensive painting in the world at the time. The piece has been on display at the gallery since July 2006. Rumours persist that the painting hints at a more-than platonic relationship between Klimt and the painting’s subject; Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer who commissioned the work. Style of the painting The painting took Klimt three years to complete, and the final work shows elaborated and complex ornamentation as seen in the Jugendstil style. It measures 138 x 138 cm, and is made of oil and gold on canvas. The piece is also influenced by Klimt’s membership of the Vienna Secession, a group of Austrian artists who broke away from traditional ways of painting. It was commissioned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy industrialist who had made his fortune in the sugar industry. Bloch-Bauer favoured and supported Klimt.

Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881-1925) Born in 1881, Adele Bloch-Bauer was the youngest daughter of a wealthy Jewish banking family. She entered into an arranged marriage with business tycoon Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer aged 18 to escape her parent’s household. Whether or not Adele and Gustav had an affair remains a mystery. But Adele adored the artist and his work, collecting five of his works which reportedly adorned the walls of her chambers. It is rumoured that Adele confessed her affair with Klimt to her physician and personal maid before her death from meningitis in Vienna in 1925, aged 43. The painting after Adele Block-Bauer’s death Adele Block-Bauer’s family was forced to flee Austria when the Nazis took power and confiscated the painting. The portrait and four other looted Klimt pictures had been displayed in a gallery in Vienna for more than 60 years until a 1998 law in Austria required museums to return art seized by the Nazis. They were returned to Maria Altmann, Adele’s niece, in 2010 after a protracted legal battle.

Notable sales Ronald S Lauder bought the painting for a reported $135 million in 2006 - a record at the time for a work of art . $491 Million Sale Shatters Art Auction Record - The New York Times The New York Times Art & Design |$491 Million Sale Shatters Art Auction Record Search Continue reading the main story In a landmark sale, the biggest in auction history, nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of art changed hands last night at Christie’s sale of Impressionist and modern art. Soaring prices for blockbuster paintings by Klimt and Gauguin left thousands of spectators, who came to watch and to buy, gasping. “It was certainly the most amazing sale I’ve ever taken,” said a dazed Christopher Burge, honorary chairman of Christie’s and the evening’s auctioneer, after the two-and-a-half hour sale. The evening’s total, $491.4 million, was well over $200 million more than that for any previous auction, topping its high estimate of $427.8 million.

(The previous record was $269 million at Christie’s in May 1990.) Of the 84 lots up for sale last night, only 6 failed to sell. The sale included an estimated $125 million worth of artworks that had recently been returned to the heirs of owners from whom they were looted by the Nazis during World War II. Before restitution, five had been hanging in museums. Continue reading the main story Heading that group were four paintings by Klimt that were recently on view at the Neue Galerie in Manhattan along with his “Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” which Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir, privately bought for the gallery in June for $135 million. Advertisement Continue reading the main story That price was only one of the factors that contributed to a night of bidding frenzy, along with the great wealth being accumulated in world financial markets and the high quality of the works on offer. The Klimts, the stars of the evening, were originally in the collection of the turn-of-the century sugar industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and his wife, Adele, a prominent hostess.

In January, an arbitration court ruled that the paintings had been improperly seized when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938. They were then handed over to a niece of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer, Maria Altmann of Los Angeles, who watched last night’s sale from a skybox at Christie’s. Often, what she saw was pure auction theater. Photo The telephone bank at Christies during bidding for Klimts Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912). The portrait sold for $87.9 million. Credit Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times When “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II,” a 1912 portrait of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer in fashionable street clothes and a wide-brimmed hat, came up for sale, four telephone bidders tenaciously went for the painting, which was expected to sell for $40 million to $60 million. Mr. Burge carefully proceeded in $500,000 increments.

When the price rose to $74 million and the competition was down to two bidders, Guy Bennett, head of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department in New York, dramatically raised his hand and began bidding aggressively for an anonymous client on the telephone. Mr. Bennett’s buyer won, paying $87.9 million, a record for the artist. The salesroom burst into applause. Before the auction, Mr. Lauder had said he would love to buy that portrait for the Neue Galerie if the price was right. All Christie’s would say was that the buyer was a private collector. The three other Klimts, all landscapes, also brought strong prices. Five bidders went for “Birch Forest” (1903), one of the artist’s few woodland scenes, depicting an autumn scene of fallen leaves. Another telephone bidder finally paid $40.3 million, well above its high estimate of $30 million.

“Houses at Unterach on the Attersee” (1916), a view of a resort town in the Austrian countryside that was estimated at $18 million to $25 million, sold for $31 million to an unidentified couple sitting in the front of the salesroom. Another telephone duel was waged for “Apple Tree I” (1912), a richly colored canvas that sold for $33 million, far above its estimate of $15 million to $25 million. (Final prices include Christie’s commission: 20 percent of the first $100,000 and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect the commissions.) The Klimts weren’t the only blockbusters last night. Early in the evening, Gauguin’s “Man with an Ax” (1891), estimated at $35 million to $45 million, was sold to another anonymous telephone bidder for $40.3 million, a record for the artist. The richly colored canvas of a Tahitian poised in front of his boat has been in the Sultan of Brunei’s family. Although Christie’s executives said Mr.

Lauder did not buy any of the Klimts, the Neue Galerie, with the help of an anonymous “friend” of the museum, was able to purchase Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “Street Scene, Berlin.” This colorful canvas of an urban crowd, painted mainly in blues with a prostitute in a bright red dress on the left, was expected to bring $18 million to $25 million. Daniella Luxembourg, a private dealer, bid on behalf of the Neue Galerie, paying $38 million, another record. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The painting is another story of restitution. It found its way to Christie’s only three months after the German government returned it to the heirs of Alfred and Thekla Hess, Jewish collectors in Erfurt, Germany. The painting, which had been hanging in Brücke Museum in Berlin, is one of only 11 street scenes painted by Kirchner and is considered one of his finest, having been painted at the height of his career.

The sale lost one of its potential stars earlier yesterday when Christie’s announced that it was reluctantly withdrawing an important Picasso portrait, “Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto.” The decision, made by the auction house and the seller, the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, came just a day after a federal judge dismissed a claim filed by Julius H. Schoeps, a Jewish banker’s heir, who contends that the soulful Blue Period painting was sold under duress by his great-uncle, a banker in Nazi Germany. The 1903 painting, estimated at $40 million to $60 million, was to be sold on behalf of Mr. Lloyd Webber’s foundation, which benefits theaters and actors. Christie’s said the sale was delayed because Mr. Schoeps’s lawyers had informed them that they would file another suit in a state court. The loss of the Picasso did not hurt the evening. As crowds milled around Christie’s after the sale, trying to make sense of it all, Andrew Fabricant, a Manhattan dealer, perhaps best echoed the feeling of the audience. “I’m flabbergasted,” he said.

“Not only did so much money change hands, but this sale it going to change the whole landscape when it comes to prices for postwar art.” A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Klimts Spark Bidding as $496 Million Sale Shatters Record. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Gustav Klimt: The final years | NDTV Gadgets360.com Gustav Klimt: The final years Share on Facebook Tweet Share Share Email Reddit Gustav Klimt dominated the art scene in Vienna from around 1900 until his death in 1918. Continuing his earlier success, his painting Death and Life received first prize in the world exhibitions in Rome in 1911. Gustav Klimt's other works during his latter days included Portrait of Mada Primavesi and Avenue in Schloss Kammer Park. Adele Bloch-Bauer became the only model to be painted twice by Klimt, when she posed for Adele Bloch-Bauer II in 1912.

Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy industrialist and an art-lover who sponsored Gustav Klimt and other artists. The original Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is the more famous of the two paintings, fetching a then-record US $135 million when it was sold to American businessman and philanthropist Ronald Lauder in June 2006. The Adele Bloch-Bauer II went under the hammer in November 2006, fetching a cool US $88 million in the process. Gustav Klimt died in Vienna on February 6, 1918, three years after the death of his mother. Klimt fell victim to the infamous influenza pandemic that engulfed the globe, claiming between 50 million and 130 million lives around the world in three years. Klimt's death, caused by a stroke and pneumonia induced by the influenza, left several paintings unfinished, including the The Bride, Adam and Eve, and Portrait of Johanna Staude.

$491 Million Sale at Christie's Shatters Art Auction Record - NYTimes.com $491 Million Sale at Christie's Shatters Art Auction Record By CAROL VOGEL Published: November 9, 2006 In a landmark sale, the biggest in auction history, nearly half a billion dollars' worth of art changed hands last night at Christie's sale of Impressionist and modern art. Soaring prices for blockbuster paintings by Klimt and Gauguin left thousands of spectators, who came to watch and to buy, gasping. ''It was certainly the most amazing sale I've ever taken,'' said a dazed Christopher Burge, honorary chairman of Christie's and the evening's auctioneer, after the two-and-a-half hour sale. The evening's total, $491.4 million, was well over $200 million more than that for any previous auction, topping its high estimate of $427.8 million. (The previous record was $269 million at Christie's in May 1990.) Of the 84 lots up for sale last night, only 6 failed to sell. Christie's had put together one of its strongest sales ever.

It included an estimated $125 million worth of artworks that had recently been returned to the heirs of owners from whom they were looted by the Nazis during World War II. Before restitution, five had been hanging in museums. Heading that group were four paintings by Klimt that were recently on view at the Neue Galerie in Manhattan along with his ''Adele Bloch-Bauer I,'' which Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir, privately bought for the gallery in June for $135 million, the record for a painting at the time. That price was only one of the factors that contributed to a night of bidding frenzy, along with the great wealth being accumulated in world financial markets and the high quality of the works on offer. The Klimts, the stars of the evening, were originally in the collection of the turn-of-the century sugar industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and his wife, Adele, a prominent hostess whose salons attracted artists, writers, musicians and politicians in Vienna. In January, an arbitration court ruled that the paintings had been improperly seized when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938. They were then handed over to a niece of Mrs.

Bloch-Bauer, Maria Altmann of Los Angeles, who watched last night's sale from a skybox at Christie's. Often, what she saw was pure auction theater. When ''Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II,'' a 1912 portrait of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer in fashionable street clothes and a wide-brimmed hat, came up for sale, four telephone bidders tenaciously went for the painting, which was expected to sell for $40 million to $60 million. Mr. Burge carefully proceeded in $500,000 increments. When the price rose to $74 million and the competition was down to two bidders, Guy Bennett, head of Christie's Impressionist and modern art department in New York, dramatically raised his hand and began bidding aggressively for an anonymous client on the telephone. Mr. Bennett's buyer won, paying $87.9 million, a record for the artist. The salesroom burst into applause. Before the auction, Mr. Lauder had said he would love to buy that portrait for the Neue Galerie if the price was right. All Christie's would say was that the buyer was a private collector.

The three other Klimts, all landscapes, also brought strong prices. Five bidders went for ''Birch Forest'' (1903), one of the artist's few woodland scenes, depicting an autumn scene of fallen leaves. Another telephone bidder finally paid $40.3 million, well above its high estimate of $30 million estimate. ''Houses at Unterach on the Attersee'' (1916), a view of a resort town in the Austrian countryside that was estimated at $18 million to $25 million, sold for $31 million to an unidentified couple sitting in the front of the salesroom. Another telephone duel was waged for ''Apple Tree I'' (1912), a richly colored canvas that sold for $33 million, far above its estimate of $15 million to $25 million. (Final prices include Christie's commission: 20 percent of the first $100,000 and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect the commissions.) The Klimts weren't the only blockbusters last night.

Early in the evening, Gauguin's ''Man with an Ax'' (1891), estimated at $35 million to $45 million, was sold to another anonymous telephone bidder for $40.3 million, a record for the artist. The richly colored canvas of a Tahitian poised in front of his boat has been in the Sultan of Brunei's family. Although Christie's executives said Mr. Lauder did not buy any of the Klimts, the Neue Galerie, with the help of an anonymous ''friend'' of the museum, was able to purchase Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's ''Street Scene, Berlin.'' This colorful canvas of an urban crowd, painted mainly in blues with a prostitute in a bright red dress on the left, was expected to bring $18 million to $25 million. Daniella Luxembourg, a private dealer, bid on behalf of the Neue Galerie, paying $38 million, another record. The painting is another story of restitution. It found its way to Christie's only three months after the German government returned it to the heirs of Alfred and Thekla Hess, Jewish collectors in Erfurt, Germany. The painting, which had been hanging in Br?

Museum in Berlin, is one of only 11 street scenes painted by Kirchner and is considered one of his finest, having been painted at the height of his career. To help pay for ''Adele Bloch-Bauer I,'' Mr. Lauder was selling two watercolors and a painting by Schiele last night, all brought strong prices and all had been shown on and off at the Neue Galerie. A two-sided painting -- ''Houses (With Mountains)'' on one side and ''Monk 1'' on the other (1915) -- was estimated at at $20 million to $30 million. It ended up selling to a a telephone buyer for $22.4 million, yet another record for the artist.

''Kneeling Nude Leaning to the Left,'' a 1917 drawing of a half-nude woman kneeling that was expected to fetch $6 million to $8 million, was sold to Doris Ammann, the Zurich dealer, for $11.2 million and ''Two Girls on a Fringed Blanket,'' a 1911 watercolor, estimated at $5 million to $7 million, was bought by a telephone bidder for $5.6 million. The sale lost one of its potential stars earlier yesterday when Christie's announced that it was reluctantly withdrawing an important Picasso portrait, ''Portrait of Angel Fern?ez de Soto.'' The decision, made by the auction house and the seller, the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, came just a day after a federal judge dismissed a claim filed by Julius H. Schoeps, a Jewish banker's heir, who contends that the soulful Blue Period painting was sold under duress by his great-uncle, a banker in Nazi Germany. The 1903 painting, estimated at $40 million to $60 million, was to be sold on behalf of Mr. Lloyd Webber's foundation, which benefits theaters and actors.

Christie's said the sale was delayed because Mr. Schoeps's lawyers had informed them that they would file another suit in a state court. The loss of the Picasso did not hurt the evening. As crowds milled around Christie's after the sale, trying to make sense of it all, Andrew Fabricant, a Manhattan dealer, perhaps best echoed the feeling of the audience. ''I'm flabbergasted,'' he said. ''Not only did so much money change hands, but this sale it going to change the whole landscape when it comes to prices for postwar art.'' Photo: The telephone bank at Christie's during bidding for Klimt's ''Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II'' (1912), which sold for $87.9 million. (Photo by Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times)(pg. B3) 1000+ images about Gustav Klimt...public domain on Pinterest | Deutsch, Vienna and Portrait Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Gustav Klimt...public domain Gustav Klimt (1862 –1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement.

Klimt's primary subject was the female body; his works are marked by a frank eroticism His father was a gold engraver. In 1906, Klimt's portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, was purchased reportedly for US $135 million, surpassing Picasso's Boy With a Pipe , as the highest reported price ever paid for a painting. 239 Pins761 Followers Klimt portrait of adele bloch bauer i | The most expensive artworks in pictures - Art Art Previous slide Next slide 8 of 14 View All Skip Ad Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché sold for $170.4 million (£113 million) at Christie's in November 2015, making it the second-highest auction price for any artwork . Nu Couché (Reclining Nude) was sold in New York after a protracted bidding battle to a buyer who wished to remain anonymous, according to the auction house. The 1917-18 painting had the highest pre-sale estimate of any lot in the three sales by the major auction houses of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art.

The painting became the tenth work of art to sell for more than $100 million at auction, and was nearly joined by Roy Lichtenstein's 1964 Nurse, which sold for $95.3 million on Monday night, smashing the previous record for a work by the pop artist. To hollering cheers and applause, a lot of head-shaking and even more gasps, a Pablo Picasso masterpiece went under the hammer for a world record auction price on Monday evening of $179.4 million (£116m). There was an audible intake of breath in Christie’s Rockefeller Centre auction room in midtown Manhattan when the bids for the vibrantly-hued canvas of Les femmes d’Alger (Version O) hit $150 million. At $151 million, Jussi Pylkkanen, the Christie’s president, chief auctioneer and master of ceremonies for the evening, declared: “We’re in new territory”. Three million dollars later, some attendees simply laughed.

And at $160 million - or that historic figure of $179.4 million when all the fees were included – Mr Pylkkanen spread his arms, cast his eyes around the room a final time and brought down his hammer. Picture: Getty When will you Marry? (Nafea faa ipoipo), Paul Gaugin, £197 million In February this year Gaugin’s 1892 oil painting sold at the highest price ever for a work of art: $300 million, or £197 million. It was sold privately by major Swiss art collector Rudolf Staechelin to an unknown buyer. When Gaugin returned to Europe from Tahiti in the early 1890s, his paintings of indigenous subjects (When Will You Marry? among them) were met with indifference, but later influenced the likes of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Joan Miró.

Picture: EPA The Card Players, Paul Cézanne, £158.4 million Cézanne’s 1890s painting of two working-class men from his family’s estate was bought by the Qatari royal family for $250 million (£158.4 million) - more than double the previous auction record. Although the sale took place in 2011, the details of the secret deal only emerged in February 2012. The painting had previously belonged to Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos and the four other Cézanne paintings in the post-Impressionist series are held by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Courtauld Institute in London and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Picture: Handout Three Studies of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, £89.3 million The Francis Bacon triptych of his friend and rival artist Lucian Freud became the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in November 2013, fetching $142.4 million (almost £90 million) at Christie's in New York.

'Three Studies of Lucian Freud', which was painted in painted in 1969, was one of only two full-length triptychs Bacon ever painted of Freud. Picture: EPA No. 5, Jackson Pollock, £89 million Another sale shrouded in secrecy, the purchase of Jackson Pollock’s 1948 painting No. 5 was brokered by Sotheby’s. David Martinez reportedly bought the 8’ x 4’ piece of fibreboard, covered in drips of brown and yellow paint from Dreamworks co-founder David Geffen for $140 million, or £89 million, in November 2006. The New York Times reported the sale, but Martinez’s law firm later issued a statement saying he did not own it. The above image is of Pollock’s No. 4 painting, which sold in Sotheby’s for £25 million. Picture: Getty Images Woman III, Willem de Kooning, £88.3m In 2006, hedge fund Steven A.

Cohen bought one of Dutch painter de Kooning's “Woman” series for approximately $137.5 million from super collector and head of Geffen Records, David Geffen. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Gustav Klimt, £85.7 million Cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder broke the record for the highest sum ever paid for a painting in July 2006 when he paid $135 million (£85.7 million) for Gustav Klimt’s 1907 work, Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer 1. Again, this is a price gauged by experts close to the deal, as Mr Lauder was forbidden from revealing the price, which was negotiated by Christie’s. Picture: AFP The Scream, Edvard Munch, £76.3 million Edvard Munch’s expressionist masterpiece was bought by an anonymous buyer for $120 million (£76.3 million) at Sotheby’s New York in 2012. The painting’s previous owner was businessman Petter Olsen, who acquired it as his father was a friend of Munch’s.

Bidding lasted just 12 minutes and the work had a starting price of $40 million. Picture: AFP Garcon à la Pipe, Pablo Picasso, £66.1 million Picasso’s charming portrait was at the centre of a telephone bidding war at Sotheby’s in 2004, and was finally sold for $104.1 million. The painting was sold by the collectors and gallerists John Hay Whitney and Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney. The influence of this pair in the art world is thought to have boosted the price of the painting. Picture: EPA Portrait of Dr Gachet, Vincent van Gogh, £52.4 million Van Gogh’s portrait of the medic who cared for him in the final months of his life broke records when it was sold in 1990 for $82.5 million. The portrait was bought by a Tokyo art dealer on behalf of Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito. However, when Saito died in debt, the painting disappeared into the international art market and its whereabouts remain unknown.

Picture: AP Diana and Actaeon, Titian, £50 million This painting by Renaissance master Titian is one in a series of seven famous “poesies” canvasses by the painter. Now in the joint possession of the National Gallery in London and the National Galleries of Scotland, the previous owner the Duke of Sutherland claimed he didn’t do too well out of the £50 million deal. The Duke will avoid inheritance tax and capital gains tax by selling the paintings to public collections, however he was reported saying he could have made more money by selling them in the open market. Picture: Reuters Bal du Moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, £49.6 million Sold in 1990, Renoir’s depiction of Sunday afternoon jollity in Paris’s Montmartre reached $78.1 million at an auction held at Sotheby’s. As the painting was also bought by the controversial Japanese industrialist Ryoei Saito, its whereabouts are also unknown after Saito’s death. It is thought to be in the hands of a Swiss collector.

Picture: Biography Channel Portrait of Joseph Roulin, Vincent Van Gogh, £36.7 million In 1989 the Museum of Modern Art in New York bought this painting from a private collection in Zurich for $58 million (£36.7 million). Accounting for inflation, this remains one of the most expensive paintings ever sold. The portrait was painted exactly 100 years before the sale and is one of six Van Gogh painted of his close friend Roulin, who was a postman in Arles. Picture: Alamy 1000+ images about Movie "Women in Gold" Gustav Klimt "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" - Gold on Pinterest | Silk, Adele and Silk scarves Forward Famous Pieces of Art Stolen by the Nazis. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I Artist: Gustav Klimt. Gustav Klimt was an Austrian born Symbolist painter. During his lifetime, Klimt created many portraits, murals, and sketches. The primary subject of his work was usually the female body. In 1904, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer hired Gustav Klimt to create a portrait of his wife Adele.

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Question: Who painted Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I which reportedly sold for a record 135 million dollars in June 2006?
Answer: Gustav Klimt