Painting stolen by Nazis becomes second most expensive work of art auctioned

The painting was stolen by Nazis and was almost destroyed in a fire during World War II. In the year 1948, three years after the end of the war, it was returned to Gustav’s brother Erich.

The painting remained with Gustav’s brother until 1983, two years before his death, and in 1985 it was incorporated into the individual collection of billionaire Leonard A. Laude, who died in June of this year at the age of 92.

Like this painting, large full-length portraits painted by the Austrian artist during his period of greatest prominence (between 1912 and 1917) are “extremely rare”, Sotheby’s explained in a statement. Most are part of the collections of major museums and few belong to private collectors.

Until now, the auction record for a work by Klimt was the painting “Lady with a Fan” (1917-1918), sold for 85.3 million pounds (108.8 million dollars) in London in 2023.

The record sale comes against a backdrop of a 33.5% drop in global art auction revenue in 2024, to $9.9 billion, the lowest value recorded since 2009, according to Artprice’s annual report published in March.

The cause, in addition to a difficult economic context, is the lack of works of great value.