By Kavita Mistry 
A portrait by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt fetched $236.4 million in New York on Tuesday (November 18, 2025), becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.
Six bidders battled for 20 minutes over the “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer”, which Klimt painted between 1914 and 1916.
The piece depicts the daughter of Klimt’s main patron dressed in a white imperial Chinese dress, standing before a blue tapestry with Asian-inspired motifs.
Sotheby’s, which managed the sale, did not disclose the identity of the buyer.
The most expensive painting ever sold at auction remains the “Salvator Mundi”, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, which was bought for $450 million in 2017.
Bidding representatives react after Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold for $450 million at Christie’s in New York on November 15, 2017.
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“Full-length society portraits of this impressive scale and from Klimt’s pinnacle period (1912-17) are exceptionally rare; the majority in major museum collections,” Sotheby’s said of Tuesday’s (November 18, 2025) sale.
“The painting offered this evening was one of only two such commissioned portraits remaining in private hands,” it added in a statement.
Several other works from Klimt were auctioned at the same event, including “Flowering Meadow” for $86 million and “Forest Slope at Unterach am Attersee” for $68.3 million — both part of the collection of Estee Lauder cosmetics heir Leonard Lauder, who died earlier in 2025.
In total, 24 lots from the Lauder collection generated $527.5 million.
For Klimt, the past auction record for his work was held by “Lady with a Fan”, which sold for £85.3 million ($108.8 million) in London in 2023.
Another notable auction on Tuesday (November 18, 2025) saw Italian provocateur Maurizio Cattelan’s solid gold toilet go for $12.1 million, and was sold to a famous American brand, according to Sotheby’s.
Maurizio Cattelan’s America, a fully functional toilet fashioned from just over 100 kg of solid 18-karat gold, is seen during a preview of the auction house Sotheby’s new headquarters in Manhattan on November 7, 2025.
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Reuters
An earlier version of the luxe latrine, titled “America”, was stolen in 2019 from a castle in England.
This September 16, 2016 file image made from a video shows the 18-karat toilet, titled “America”, by Maurizio Cattelan in the restroom of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Thieves have stolen the solid gold toilet from Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. The toilet, the work of Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, had been installed only two days earlier at Blenheim Palace, west of London, after previously being on show at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
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Though it was never recovered — and likely was melted down for cash — three men were convicted in connection with the theft.
On Thursday (November 20, 2025), a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo has a chance of setting a record for a female artist when it goes on sale, also at Sotheby’s in New York.
Estimated at $40 to $60 million, the 1940 piece called “The Dream (The Bed)” shows the Mexican painter sleeping in a bed overshadowed by a large skeleton.
A painting by Frida Kahlo titled “El sueño (La cama) (The Dream (The Bed))” is displayed at Sotheby’s auction rooms in London on September 19, 2025.
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The most expensive painting by a female artist sold to date is a 1932 work by American Georgia O’Keeffe, which fetched $44.4 million in 2014.
The record for Frida Kahlo is another self-portrait from 1949, “Diego and I”, which sold for $34.4 million in New York.
Visitors look at a Frida Kahlo painting titled, “Diego y yo (Diego and I) on display at Sotheby’s auction house during a press preview in New York on November 5, 2021.
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AP