Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in New York for $236.4 million, according to Bloomberg.
The portrait, painted between 1914 and 1916 and completed two years before the artist’s death, became the most expensive work of modern art and the second most expensive painting ever sold at auction. The buyer’s name has not been disclosed.
Elisabeth Lederer is the daughter of Austrian businessman August Lederer. During the occupation of Austria, she pretended to be Klimt’s daughter to hide her Jewish origins. The Nazis stole the portrait from her family, but in 1948 the painting was returned, after which it was sold to art dealer Serge Sabarsky in 1983. In 1985, the painting was purchased by Leonard Lauder, son of the founders of the Estee Lauder brand, who remained the owner of the painting until his death at the age of 92 in June this year.
Another 23 lots from the Lauder collection were sold at auction, including a drawing by Vincent van Gogh and a bronze statuette by Henri Matisse, for a total of $527.5 million.
A diamond brooch, believed to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte, was purchased by a private collector for $4.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva.
This significantly exceeded the estimated value of $150-250 thousand.
According to the lot description, this brooch can be clearly identified as a hat decoration left by Napoleon in his carriage during his retreat from the battlefield at Waterloo in 1815. The Prussian army then captured and confiscated at least two carriages carrying the emperor’s personal belongings, including his medals, weapons, silverware, hat, and jewelry box.
Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher made a note that he had sent Napoleon’s captured hat and sword to the Prussian King Frederick William III because they had symbolic value. The brooch remained in the possession of the royal house of Hohenzollern for about two centuries, and in recent years has been in a private collection.
The jewelry is round in shape. In its center is an oval diamond weighing 13.04 carats. The main stone is surrounded by nearly a hundred smaller diamonds of various shapes and sizes.
Another lot related to Napoleon was presented at the Royal & Noble Jewels auction – a green beryl weighing almost 133 carats. The first written mention of this stone appears in the will of Elizabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, Queen of Prussia. It is described as “an aquamarine in a diamond setting worn by Napoleon during his coronation.”
The green beryl was sold for $32,000, with an estimate of $40,000-60,000.
The auction house expects to gain $ 2-4 million for the sneakers, which played Jordan in one of the games of the final of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1998, and $ 100-200 thousand for the shirt in which Pele made his debut for the “New York Cosmos” in 1975.
The basketball player’s sneakers could become the most expensive in history, surpassing the $1.8 million Air Yeezy rapper Kanye West sold for in 2021.
In addition, with an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000, a warm-up jersey of basketball player Kobe Bryant is up for auction. He wore it on the day of the game, where he scored 81 points (the second highest score in NBA history).
In addition, at the auction Victoriam you can buy things tennis players Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and basketball with the autographs of Bryant and the former U.S. president Barack Obama.
The auction ends April 11.
