How a desperate lie saved a Gustav Klimt portrait from the Nazis – and helped shape its record sale price

By Benedict Carpenter van Barthold, Lecturer, School of Art & Design, Nottingham Trent University

Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer has sold to an anonymous phone bidder for US$236.4 million (£180.88 million) at Sotheby’s New York. Only Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi has achieved a higher hammer price. For modern art, Klimt is the uncontested champion.

What’s more, this record was achieved despite a cooling global art market, and with Klimt lacking the universal household recognition of Da Vinci in much of the world.

The painting is valued…

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