Adele Bloch-Bauer has the distinction of being the only woman to have her portrait painted twice by Klimt. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) was purchased via private sale by Ronald Lauder for display in the Neue Galerie in New York City. At the time, it was the most expensive painting ever sold, commanding $135 million.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912) broke the artist’s auction record at the time of Christie’s sale in November 2006, earning $87,936,000, after an exciting four-person bidding war. The remaining three landscape paintings each sold for over $30 million, reinforcing the importance of Klimt as a modern master.
A landmark case, the story of the restitution of the Bloch-Bauer Klimts continues to inspire those fighting to recover their lost cultural heritage today, and it was memorialised in the 2015 film Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds.
Important Art from the Fujita Museum, 2017
One of Japan’s preeminent cultural institutions, the Fujita Museum’s collection is composed of over 2,000 works of Japanese and Chinese art belonging to the Fujita family. In 2017, a selection of ritual bronzes, Buddhist stone sculptures, classical paintings and scholar’s objects were offered at Christie’s as part of Important Art from the Fujita Museum.
