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It was a tale of two Sotheby’s auctions in NYC on Tuesday. Up first was Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer by Gustav Klimt, a piece that miraculously eschewed destruction and disappearance after being stolen by the Nazis. The painting was returned to the Lederer family by 1948, where it remained for 35 years until it was sold to makeup heir Leonard A. Lauder, who passed away this year. Sotheby’s expected $10 million $150 million for the painting; instead it sold for $236.4 million, making it the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction (the most expensive being a da Vinci). Following that record-breaking sale, Sotheby’s switched gears to an item of modern art we’ve covered before: America, by Maurizio Cattelan. As you’ll undoubtedly recall, the “art” is a 216-pound 18-karat gold fully functioning toilet. This piece was also expected to fetch $10 million — at least, they said! Yet when the time came to make the big flush, only one bidder stepped up to the can:

Portrait of a young woman by the artist: The six-foot-tall painting, titled Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, was painted by the Austrian painter between 1914 and 1916 and shows Lederer, a young heiress and daughter of Klimt’s patrons, draped in a Chinese robe. Six bidders battled for 20 minutes at the Sotheby’s auction on Tuesday night in New York. Sotheby’s declined to identify the successful buyer of the painting. Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer was looted by the Nazis and nearly destroyed in a fire during the second world war, but in 1948 it was returned to Lederer’s brother Erich, who was a frequent subject of drawings and paintings by Klimt’s friend and fellow artist Egon Schiele. It remained in Erich’s possession for most of his life, until he sold it in 1983, two years before his death.

A second act with Lauder: In 1985 the painting became part of the private art collection of Estée Lauder heir Leonard A Lauder, who displayed it in his Fifth Avenue home in New York but for brief periods when it was lent to galleries. Lauder died in June, aged 92. Art historian Emily Braun, who worked as Lauder’s art adviser for nearly four decades, told CNN that the painting was the jewel of his collection. “He ate lunch whenever he was at home, and lunch would be at a little round table right by the painting,” Braun said. The painting was one of two full-length Klimt portraits that remain in private hands.

Figure studies: It was predicted before Tuesday that the Klimt painting would sell for more than $150m (£114m, A$230m). But it smashed expectations to represent more than 40% of the total value of Lauder’s collection, which fetched $575.5m (£437.5m, A$885.7m) with fees. The sale of Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sets a new record for a Klimt painting at auction, surpassing the $108m record set by the sale of Lady with a Fan in 2023. … The most expensive artwork ever sold at auction was Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, which sold in 2017 for US$450.3m.

Modern art is in the toilet: The 101kg, 18-karat-gold toilet, titled America, was made by Maurizio Cattelan, the provocative Italian artist known for taping a banana to a wall and selling it for $5.2m. But on Tuesday, his gold toilet received only a single bid that met the asking price of $10m, or $12.1m with fees. Cattelan created two solid gold toilets in 2016. The other was displayed in 2016 at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, which pointedly offered to lend it to US president Donald Trump when he asked to borrow a Van Gogh painting. … Cattelan has said that his gold toilets satirise superwealth, once saying: “Whatever you eat, a $200 lunch or a $2 hot dog, the results are the same, toilet-wise.”

[From The Guardian]

A Klimt broke records while a shiny gold toilet couldn’t draw more than one interested party? You guys, my old fashioned heart loves this! It’s craft winning over a gimmick, talent over stunt. I’m sure Cattelan is a gas to have at a party, but speaking for myself, I could do with fewer bananas and toilets in fine art. And speaking of ridiculous sentences, that comment from Lauder’s art adviser Emily Braun had me in stitches. “He ate lunch whenever he was at home, and lunch would be at a little round table right by the painting.” WTF kind of a statement is that?! It says nothing about the actual work of art itself, except possibly the inference that it was a good background for digestion. And why was Leonard only eating lunch at home?? I’d question Braun’s credentials, but she demonstrated her expertise in a recent interview with CNN. Anyway, congrats on the impressive purchase to the mystery bidder; hopefully Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer will be made available for the public to enjoy. In the meantime, we still have access to toilets.

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photos via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain and credit Getty