A famous painting by the deceased artist Leonard Lauder has been set up to be put out for auction.
Leonard was a famous painter who grew up during the great depression, died at the age of 92 and left behind his most famous paintings. One of the 55 paintings is the “Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer.” The painting depicts Elizabeth, a Chinese empress, in a long white gown with blue, green, red, and yellow spirals around it, and people in the back looking at her. The painting is historically valued, not just because of the price it’s expected to bring when it’s auctioned, but due to its rarity.
This painting was painted alongside Austrian master Gustav Klimt, fetching an even higher price, since it was one of only 2 artworks painted by Klimt’s hands, the other being in private ownership. The painting is expected to sell for about 150 million dollars, and it was painted around 1914-1916. A curator at the auction who gained front row access to one of the most historical pieces of art, Emily Braun says, “He elevates her to almost mythical stature,” and “The sensitivity of the face and the richness of the robe, its regal.” Braun also mentioned Launder’s bond to Klimt was aesthetic.
Launder started to collect Klimt’s works in the 1970s, and the meanings behind them were tragic, to say the least. Klimt’s wife, Evylen, had to flee to Vienna during WW2 just because she was jewish. As a boy, Launder worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, helping the museum gather over 1,000 art works at the time, which is equivalent to about one tenth of its entire collection. Eventually, Sotheby took over the museum on Manhattan’s Madison, and, at its grand opening on November 8th, lines would loop around entire blocks just to see its magnificent art being sold off to expensive buyers. It’s intriguing to see whether or not people would be willing to buy these expensive artworks, since demand and prices sold of art has dropped about 12% during 2024.
Thankfully, the painting sold on November 18th for a total of $236.36 million dollars. From the 24 total artworks put on sale, the painting was shockingly the one to sell for the most amount of money; the others sold for a large total of $527.5 million dollars with fees, on its own being only $456.2 million dollars. Shocking to see that art from the early 20th century was put up for auction alongside other more famous art works, like Maurizio Cattelan’s golden toilet. Although, unlike previous auction seasons, none of the lots were withdrawn and the art sold for quite a bit less than what people expected, claimed at around $600-$700 million dollars at least, yet they did sell more than their expected price, at around $379 million dollars, $77 million dollars more.
