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Monday, 19th June 2006 (4212 views)

A gold-flecked portrait painted in 1907 by Gustav Klimt has been sold to a cosmetics magnate for the highest sum ever paid for a painting, reportedly $135 million (£73 million).

The oil 'Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer' depicting a Viennese aristocrat against a golden backdrop was bought by billionaire Ronald Lauder – heir of beauty entrepreneur Estee Lauder – for his New York museum, the Neue Galerie.

Lauder, former ambassador to Austria, described his investment as a "once-in-a-lifetime acquisition" making its new home "inestimably enriched".

Five years old, the tiny Manhattan gallery is entirely devoted to the exhibition of German and Austrian art.

The painting was looted by the Nazis from the Bloch-Bauer family in 1938, before being returned to the 90-year-old niece of the family, Maria Altman, after a long legal battle.

The sum paid for the Klimt masterpiece exceeds the $104 million paid for Picasso's 'Boy with a Pipe' at a Sotheby's auction in 2004.

 

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