A 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased by cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, the New York Timesreported.
The price is the highest amount ever paid for a painting and tops the $104.1 million paid for Picasso's 1905 Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)in an auction at Sotheby's in 2004.
The portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist, is considered one of Klimt's masterpieces. It was the focus of a restitution battle between the Austrian government and a niece of Bloch-Bauer who argued that it was seized along with four other Klimt paintings by the Nazis during World War Two, the Timessaid.
In January all five paintings were awarded to the niece, Maria Altmann (90), who lives in Los Angeles, and other family members.
"It is a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition," said Mr Lauder, who is a founder of the five-year-old Neue Galerie, a tiny Manhattan museum devoted entirely to German and Austrian art where all five Klimt paintings will be on view from July 13th through September 18th.
The works are currently at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
