NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 15, 2025 -- This fall in New York, Sotheby’s will offer The Leonard A. Lauder Collection, a once-in-a-generation collection of 20th-century masterpieces that personifies the lifelong connoisseurship of one of the greatest collectors and benefactors of the arts in America. The sale will launch Sotheby’s new global headquarters: the historic Breuer Building on Madison Avenue, a cultural landmark of New York.

The core of the collection will be offered in a standalone 24-lot evening sale on 18 November – expected to realize in excess of $400 million – led by one of the finest and most intricately conceived of the celebrated full-length portraits Klimt created during Vienna’s early 20th century Golden Age. Depicting the young Elisabeth Lederer, the daughter of Klimt’s greatest patrons, the painting has never before appeared on the open market. It will now be offered with an estimate in excess of $150 million.
 

Complementing the portrait are two signature square-format landscape paintings of Attersee, Klimt’s beloved summer retreat: Blumenwiese (estimate in excess of $80 million), a jewel-like mosaic of wildflowers from 1908, and Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee of 1916 (estimate in excess of $70 million), painted with the broader, lyrical touch of Klimt’s mature style. These works, too, have never before been publicly offered.

 

Also unprecedented is the offering of six iconic sculptures by Henri Matisse. Major works by Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Agnes Martin, Claes Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen, among others, reveal the full sweep of Mr. Lauder’s peerless eye. This exceptional collection, to be unveiled for the first time at Sotheby’s this fall, shines a new light on the full breadth of Mr. Lauder’s far-ranging connoisseurship.

The Lauder Legacy

 

The influence of Leonard A. Lauder – Chairman Emeritus of The Estée Lauder Companies – extends far beyond the beauty industry. One of the art world’s most passionate and influential collectors, philanthropists, and civic leaders for more than half a century, Lauder’s first significant art purchase – a late collage by the German Dadaist Kurt Schwitters – was acquired at Sotheby’s Parke Bernet in 1966.  Over the following decades he built the world’s finest private collection of Cubist art. His landmark gift of 89 seminal Cubist works to The Metropolitan Museum of Art transformed the museum’s modern holdings. At the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he served as chairman, he is regarded as the institution’s greatest champion. In 2008, his record $131 million gift – the largest single donation in the Whitney’s history – underpinned the museum’s move to its downtown home. He also donated and helped the museum acquire hundreds of works for its collection.

 

“A towering figure in the worlds of art, philanthropy and business, Leonard A. Lauder will long be remembered as an extraordinary art patron with a passion for collecting across artistic periods, mediums and genres, and for transforming the Whitney and Metropolitan Museums with his vision and generosity. We are honored to be entrusted with his exceptional collection which will captivate collectors worldwide.”

Charles F. Stewart, Sotheby’s Chief Executive Officer

 

“Leonard Lauder’s legacy as a patron and collector is deeply intertwined with the history of postwar American art. His steadfast support of the Whitney Museum of American Art is echoed in the emphasis on the great American artists of the 1960s in the collection. Led by Agnes Martin’s rare and sensational ‘The Garden’ from 1964, and featuring exceptional works by Kenneth Noland, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, and Alexander Calder, Lauder’s collection showcases the triumph of American artists in this critical era of art history.”
Lisa Dennison, Sotheby’s Chairman Americas

 

“To have not just one but three rare superb museum-quality masterpieces by Klimt, none of which has previously been offered on the open market, coming up for sale together represents a truly unique moment. The Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer epitomizes the aesthetic of Vienna’s Golden Age in which youth, beauty, colour and ornament are fused into a stunning Modernist portrait whilst the  two exquisite square format landscapes, ‘Blumenwiese’, 1908 and ‘Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee’ 1916 attest to Klimt’s liberation from the traditional conventions of painting.”
Helena Newman, Chairman of Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide, Sotheby’s

 

 

“Few artists speak to us today with the emotional power of Edvard Munch. ‘Midsummer Night’ embodies the mystical, magical atmosphere of his finest works. We are thrilled to present this rarely-seen painting alongside an exceptional group of Matisse’s ground-breaking sculpture, including his seminal ‘Figure Decorative’.”

Simon Shaw, Senior Advisor, Impressionist & Modern Art, Sotheby’s

 

“Sculpture holds both a unique and key role in the work of Henri Matisse, with many examples held in museum collections around the world. This is the most important group of Matisse bronzes to come to auction in recent memory. It comprises his most iconic forms including ‘Figure décorative’, ‘La Serpentine’ and ‘Nu couché I (Aurore)’ as well as the full suite of Henriette bronzes, which have never before been available at auction as a complete set.”

Simon Stock, Senior Specialist, Impressionist & Modern Art, Europe & Asia, Sotheby’s

A Glimpse Inside the Collection

GUSTAV KLIMT

Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer)

Oil on canvas

Executed in 1914-16.

Estimate in excess of $150 million

Gustav Klimt’s Porträt der Elisabeth Lederer (Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer) is a masterpiece by Klimt and its appearance at auction represents a once in a generation opportunity to buy one of the most famous and admired of all the Viennese artist’s celebrated paintings of women. Fully completed, full-length society portraits of this impressive scale and from this important 1912-1917 period, which are widely considered the most desirable, are extremely rare to the market with the majority in major Museum collections.  This one of only two such portraits remaining in private hands.

 

Both the daughter of Klimt’s great patrons and herself a fervent admirer of the artist, the 20-year-old Elisabeth Lederer is shown in the full bloom of her youth, dressed in the height of Poiret-inspired modern Viennese fashion against a background infused with East Asian motifs, reflecting Klimt’s passion for Chinese and Japanese artefacts and textiles. A painterly fusion of youthful femininity and cosmopolitan elegance, of Viennese style and the exoticism of the East, the painting epitomises Klimt’s mastery of colour and pattern.
 

Elisabeth Franziska Lederer was the daughter of industrialist August Lederer and his wife Serena Lederer, née Pulitzer, who, since the early 1890s had quickly established themselves as the most illustrious and important of Klimt’s patrons. In the wake of a dispute with the artistic establishment that had threatened his career, it was they who came to the Klimt’s rescue, amassing what swiftly became the largest and most important collection of Klimt’s work anywhere. As early as 1892 Klimt had painted Serena Lederer – a portrait that now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – and later Serena was able to commission from him a portrait of her mother, Charlotte Pulitzer, as well as the present painting of her daughter Elisabeth. Elisabeth Lederer had therefore known Klimt all her life and affectionately referred to him as “Uncle”.

Work on the portrait appears to have continued for almost three years, with Klimt, as was increasingly characteristic during these later years, seemingly never satisfied. “Months passed making drawings in various positions,” Elisabeth recalled. “Uncle [Klimt] cursed and swore; it was a real pleasure to listen to him. Several times, he threw the pencil away and said that one should never paint people who are too close.” The project could have lasted even longer but eventually, as Elisabeth described, her mother lost patience, “…seized the picture, loaded it onto the car, and kidnapped it.”

 

The portrait’s serenity stands in stark counterpoint to what would follow: the 1938 Nazi Anschluss. Though Elisabeth Lederer had converted to Protestantism when she married Baron Bachofen von Echt in 1921, in the eyes of the regime, Elisabeth had become Jewish again upon their divorce in the 1930s; thereafter, she frantically sought to escape deportation. To save herself, Elisabeth argued that the non-Jewish, “German-blooded” Klimt had in fact been her father. Such a parentage, made with the knowledge and complicity of her mother Serena (despite it being ruinous to her own reputation) was ultimately believed by the city’s new “Reich’s Department for Genealogical Research” and Elisabeth was permitted to remain in Vienna where she died 1944.

The painting was, however, confiscated by the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz in March 1939, and was only restituted to the Lederer heirs after the war in 1946. Later acquired from the family by Serge Sabarsky, an early champion of German and Austrian art in America, the portrait was purchased from him by Mr. Lauder in the mid-1980s.

 

In June 2023, Sotheby’s set the record for a work at auction by Klimt when Dame mit Fächer (Lady with Fan) sold for $108.8m (£85.3m) in London. Estimated in the region of $150 million, Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer is poised to set a new benchmark for the artist when offered at Sotheby’s this November.

 

 

*아트 컬렉터/에스터 로더 회장 레오나드 로더(Leonard A. Lauder, 92) 별세, 2025

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