It has been quite the month for Sotheby’s New York. Shortly after moving into the renovated Breuer Building – former home of the Whitney Museum of Art – on Museum Mile in Manhattan’s fashionable Upper East Side, the world’s leading auction house set a new benchmark by achieving the highest total ever recorded in a single evening of auctions. Totalling an impressive $706 million, the evening saw a plethora of art records fall – including the second most expensive art sale in history – and notable works by some of the art world’s most influential artists change hands. Read on to discover all you need to know about Sotheby’s New York’s record-breaking event.
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The Making of a Modern Legacy
The highlight of the record-breaking auction was a 54-piece trove from the esteemed collection of Leonard A. Lauder – heir to the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetics empire – with 24 works offered on Tuesday, 18 November, and the remaining 30 sold the following morning. A prolific collector throughout his life, Lauder was renowned for acquiring works by iconic artists such as Picasso, Léger and Klimt, a legacy that endured until his passing in June 2025.
Encompassing a once-in-a-generation collection of some of the 20th century’s most important works, the Leonard A. Lauder Collection was a celebration of modern art, showcasing the vision, innovation, and enduring impact of its most influential artists.
Following his passing, Lauder’s benefactors arranged for the collection to be sold at auction through Sotheby’s – a fitting choice given his longstanding patronage of The Whitney Museum and his familiarity with the Breuer Building.
Lauder was a lifelong art enthusiast, having begun his journey as a six-year-old postcard collector, many of which were exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 2012. Later, his collection became so vast that he was able to promise his Cubist art pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, a gift which was valued at over $1 billion.
The Sotheby’s event offered a glimpse of Lauder’s extraordinary collection, featuring works by Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, and the iconic Spanish cubist Pablo Picasso. Highlights also included pieces by Dutch master Vincent Van Gogh and Norwegian expressionist Edvard Munch, the creator of the renowned painting The Scream. Yet the centrepiece of the collection was undeniably the full-length portrait of a young Elisabeth Lederer, daughter of Klimt’s most prominent patrons.
A Record-Breaking Evening
The milestone November auction saw Sotheby’s record its highest ever total in a single evening, with an eye-watering $706 million in sales.
A large contribution towards this spectacular total came in the form of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16), which fetched an unprecedented $236.4 million after a 19-minute bidding war – the most expensive piece ever sold by the illustrious auction house. The sale eclipses Klimt’s previous record, the $183.8 million paid by Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2013 for the artist’s Wasserschlangen II, and becomes the second most expensive in history, behind only Salvator Mundi by Leonardo Da Vinci. Bidding had started at $130 million, with experts expecting it to reach around $150 million, but this being a Klimt piece, the final price would inevitably reflect the rare stature he commands in the high-end market. Eventually, the winning bid came with a $205 million hammer price (before fees).
The artwork has something of an interesting history, having been part of a collection looted by Nazi officers in Vienna during World War II. In an ironic twist of fate, the piece was almost destroyed by fire but had been separated from other paintings which were ruined, due to its subject being Jewish.
Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, said: “To see Gustav Klimt’s exquisite portrait of Elisabeth Lederer set a new auction record for the artist is thrilling in itself; to see it become the most valuable work ever sold at Sotheby’s is nothing short of sensational. Klimt is one of those rare artists whose magic is as powerful as it is universal.”
Further Jewels in the Lauder Crown
The evening featured a range of other high-value pieces, with all 24 works successfully sold. Two additional Klimt paintings were among them, bringing the total for the Austrian artist’s works to an astonishing $384.7 million. His 1908 piece Blumenwiese (Blooming Meadow) achieved $86 million, while another, Waldhag bei Unterach am Attersee (Forest Slope in Unterach on the Attersee), sold for $68.3 million – interestingly falling just short of its $70 million estimate.
In what was an outstanding night for some of the art world’s most revered names, Edvard Munch’s Sankthannatt achieved a $35.1 million fee after a seven-minute battle between three bidders, while Agnes Martin’s The Garden sold for $17.6 million to private dealer Philippe Ségalot, who had to fend off two other bidders over a 10-minute bidding period.
A drawing from one of the art world’s most influential figures, Vincent Van Gogh, Le Semeur dans un champ de blé au soleil couchant (1888), fetched $9.43 million and two Matisse bronzes sold for $16.7 million each. Among other pieces auctioned on the same night – although not part of the Lauder collection – was Maurizio Cattelan’s gold toilet, which sold for $12.1 million.
The record-setting results marked a welcome reversal for a market that has faced a downward trajectory in recent years, affected by geopolitical uncertainty and a scarcity of top-tier works. However, the remarkable $706 million auction may signal that the high-end art market is once again asserting its presence – and that the horizon is beginning to brighten.
