More Klimt paintings could be sold after record set

LOS ANGELES — It is the art world's version of having the last laugh.

The Jewish family that waged a titanic battle to force Austria to return five works by modernist painter Gustav Klimt that were stolen by the Nazis have sold one for a world-record price of $135 million, and now must determine whether they want to sell the other four.

Art experts said a bidding war could now develop among major museums and collectors for the remaining works, which could together fetch between $100 million and $150 million. A family spokesman said the heirs did not want to keep the paintings.

Ronald Lauder, a billionaire cosmetics mogul, bought the gem of the collection: a gold-flecked portrait of a sensuously red-lipped Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Viennese industrialist whose company and possessions were seized by the Nazis in 1938 as he fled after Germany's annexation of Austria.

The painting is considered one of the iconic images of 20th century art, and Lauder paid $135 million, easily surpassing the previous record of $104.1 million paid for Picasso's 1905 masterpiece "Boy With a Pipe" at auction in 2004. The Klimt portrait will hang in the Neue Galerie, a small New York City museum Lauder built to showcase German and Austrian art.

"This is our Mona Lisa. It is a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition," Lauder told The New York Times.

"It was important for the heirs and for my aunt Adele that her work be displayed in a museum," said Marie Altmann, 90, who led the family's court battle.

Since the Nazis seized the portrait, it has primarily been in the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in Vienna. Altmann feared she had no hope of recovering the collection until a 1998 law in Austria required museums to return art seized by the Nazis.

Attorneys for Austria argued that Altmann's aunt, who died in 1925, had specified that it be donated to the government gallery. But with the help of attorney E. Randol Schoenberg, Altmann sued for rightful ownership of the paintings.

The case worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2004 that Altmann could sue the Austrian government. The two sides began mediation and Austrian authorities agreed in January to return all five paintings after an arbitration court ruled in her favor.

The collection has been on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art since April and will remain there until June 30.