Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer
German: Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer
Artist	Gustav Klimt
Year	1914–1916
Medium	Oil on canvas[1]
Subject	Elisabeth Lederer
Dimensions	180.4 cm × 130.5 cm (71.0 in × 51.4 in)[1]

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (German: Bildnis Elisabeth Lederer) or Portrait of Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt^[2] is an oil painting on canvas by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, painted 1914–1916. The life-size portrait depicts a young Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of Viennese art collectors August Lederer and Serena Lederer, who commissioned the work. The painting was later owned by American collector and billionaire Leonard Lauder. On 18 November 2025, following Lauder's death earlier that year, Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer was sold at Sotheby's in New York for US$236.4 million, making it the most expensive work of modern art sold at auction and the second most expensive work of art ever sold at auction.

Elisabeth Lederer was the daughter of Jewish industrialist August Lederer and Serena Lederer, some of Klimt's most prominent patrons.^[3] Elisabeth became the second member of the Lederer family to sit for Klimt, after his 1899 portrait of her mother, Serena. Klimt would later depict her grandmother, Charlotte Pulitzer, in 1915.^[4] At the time of this painting, they were the second wealthiest family in Vienna, behind only the Rothschilds. Elisabeth married Baron Wolfgang von Bachofen-Echt in 1921, converting to Protestantism, but became Jewish again after their divorce in 1938. Following the Anschluss of 1938, much of her family fled and the Lederer art collection was looted by the Nazis. To avoid persecution, Elisabeth obtained a document stating that Klimt was her father, and was helped by a senior Nazi official who was a former brother-in-law. This allowed her to remain in Vienna until her death from a severe illness on 19 October 1944.^[3][5]

In Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, Klimt depicts 20 year old Elisabeth in a flowing, white dress, as he had done for her mother in Portrait of Serena Lederer. For Elisabeth however, it is not a loose gown but a close fitting top and a skirt with styling recalling the plus fours, which were the latest fashion of the time. Over this she wears a white chiffon shawl with floral patterns.^[2] Dani Cavallaro writes that the sitter's eyes appear to drift as they meet the viewers gaze, while her tranquil expression appears to float indifferently, though not coldly, before the beholder.^[6] The carpet beneath Lederer combines bold pink-orange tones with black and white borders reminiscent of Josef Hoffmann's designs for the Wiener Werkstätte, while its irregular green and white circles recall Chinese jade.^[1]

The portrait belongs to a group of Klimt's late works in which the influence of East Asian art is especially pronounced. Other compositions by Klimt from this period include Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, Portrait of Mäda Primavesi, Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer, Lady with a Fan, and the unfinished Portrait of Ria Munk III.^[6] The background is somewhat unclear, potentially as Klimt could not finish the work fully.^[2] According to Emily Braun, the background includes figures derived from Chinese material culture and Peking opera, including low-ranking military types, scholar figures, and female attendants, rendered in a narrative role. Cavallaro interprets these flanking figures as personifications of refinement (left) and strength (right), which may be read as graphic reflections of Elisabeth Lederer’s own qualities.^[6] Tobias G. Natter writes that the Chinese figures "resemble figures from a dream … this mood is echoed by the ornamental field rising behind Elisabeth's figure".^[2] These background figures, as with Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II and Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer, are inspired by the decoration of oriental ceramics.^[4]

Cassady writes that the portrait is "widely considered one of Klimt’s most intricately conceived late portraits". It is one of only two full-length Klimt commissions which remain in private ownership, the other being Portrait of Adele Bloch‑Bauer II.^[7][8]

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer was commissioned by Elisabeth's parents in 1914, when she was a young woman but still living at home.^[2] Serena Lederer regularly argued with Klimt over the painting, as he was never quite satisfied with it. In 1916, Serena Lederer took the portrait from Klimt's studio herself, convinced that it was complete, despite Klimt's desire to keep revising it.^[2][5][1] The painting only left the Lederer collection once, to be displayed at the 1917 Austrian Art Exhibition in Stockholm.^[5]

Following the Nazi Anschluss, the painting was seized by authorities in Vienna in 1938.^[1][5] Much of the Lederer art collection was destroyed in 1945 when retreating German forces set fire to Immendorf Castle, where the works had been placed for storage, to prevent them from falling into Soviet hands. Fifteen paintings by Klimt were destroyed in the fire. Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer and the other Lederer family portraits survived because, under Nazi regulations, portraits of Jewish sitters were seen as not worth confiscating. As a result, they were not sent to the castle but instead remained at the Dorotheum auction house.^[9] After the war, Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer was restituted in 1948 to Erich Lederer, Elisabeth's brother. It remained in his possession until 1983 when he sold it to art dealer Serge Sabarsky, two years before his death.^[1][10]

The portrait was acquired by Leonard Lauder in 1985 for an undisclosed amount. For decades, it hung above the dining room table in his New York residence and was occasionally lent anonymously to brief exhibitions in art galleries, including Klimt’s Women at the Belvedere in Vienna in 2000 and several shows at the Neue Galerie New York.^[10][11][12] It was most recently exhibited from 2016 to 2017 in Klimt and the Women of Vienna’s Golden Age, 1900–1918 at the Neue Galerie and was loaned to the National Gallery of Canada in 2017.^[5][11] The work remained part of the Lauder Collection, a 55-work collection valued at over US$400 million, until it was sold at auction in November 2025 after Lauder's death earlier that year.^[12][7]

On 18 November 2025, the portrait became the most expensive work of modern art in history when it sold at auction for US$236.4 million at Sotheby's in New York. The sale surpassed the previous record held by Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger ("Version O") (1955), which sold for US$179.4 million in 2015.^[7][13] It also became the second most expensive artwork to ever sell at auction, behind Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for US$450.3 million in 2017.^[10] The auction opened at US$130 million and lasted for 20 minutes before being won by a bid of US$205 million, made by Sotheby's specialist Julian Dawes on behalf of an undisclosed telephone bidder.^[7][13]

• List of paintings by Gustav Klimt
• List of most expensive paintings

• Media related to Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer at Wikimedia Commons