Klimt Painting Sold as Second Most Expensive Artwork

A portrait by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was sold for $236.4m (£179m) in New York on Tuesday, making it the second most expensive piece ever sold at auction.

Six people took part in a 20-minute bidding battle for the Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer which was painted between 1914 and 1916.

Auction house Sotheby's has not disclosed the buyer's identity.

The portrait was looted by the Nazis and almost destroyed in a fire in World War Two, but was rescued in 1948.

The artwork was returned to Lederer's brother, Erich, a friend and subject of Klimt's contemporary, Egon Schiele. The piece remained in Lederer's possession for most of his life, before he sold it in 1983, according to Sotheby's.

The painting shows Lederer, an heiress and the daughter of one of Klimt's patrons, wearing a white robe and standing in front of a blue tapestry covered in Asian motifs.

Estée Lauder heir Leonard A Lauder made it part of his private collection in 1985, where it was displayed in his Fifth Avenue home in New York.

- Author: Rachel Muller-Heyndyk, BBC