Gold-flecked beauty smashes art record
by Carol Vogel
The New York Times
20 June 2006
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A DAZZLING, gold-flecked 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased for the Neue Galerie in New York by the cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder for $US135 million ($182 million), the highest sum ever paid for a painting.
The portrait, of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist and the hostess of a prominent Vienna salon, is considered one of the artist's masterpieces. For years it was the focus of a restitution battle between the Austrian government and a niece of Bloch-Bauer who said it was seized, along with four other Klimt paintings, by the Nazis during World War II. In January all five paintings were awarded to the niece, Maria Altmann, now 90, who lives in Los Angeles, and other family members.
Although confidentiality agreements forbid Mr Lauder from disclosing the price, experts familiar with the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he paid $US135 million, eclipsing the $US104.1 million paid for Picasso's 1905 Boy with a Pipe (The Young Apprentice) in 2004.
"This is our Mona Lisa," said Mr Lauder, a founder of the five-year-old Neue Galerie, a tiny museum devoted entirely to German and Austrian fine and decorative arts. "It is a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition."
With its sinuous lines and intricate details, the painting, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, was commissioned by the subject's husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer.
Ms Altmann said she had met Mr Lauder, a former American ambassador to Austria, some years ago.
"Mr Lauder has a great understanding of Austria and a great love for Klimt," she said, adding that neither she nor her relatives felt it was practical for them to keep the painting of her aunt, whom she remembers from her childhood but who died when she was just nine.
She said when the portrait hangs in the Neue Galerie, she will feel it is finally where it belongs.