The picture you’re looking at is the most-expensive modern art ever sold and the 2nd most-expensive art of any kind ever sold at auction. It’s Gustav Klimt’s portrait of Elisabeth Lederer and it sold at Sotheby’s in New York yesterday for a record $236.4 million after fees, breaking the record previously set by an Andy Warhol.
The high price is good news, and maybe it’s not a surprise. It’s been a bull market and we’re in a K-shaped economy. The ultra rich are doing very well and they are feeling good enough enough to spend huge amounts of money.
Looking deeper at the auction, it wasn’t a one-off. Nearly all of the items sold above estimates, and that’s not a given. A high number of the 24 items also went for 3-4x estimates.
In another quirk, this toilet made out of 18-karat gold also sold for $12 million. It was by Maurizio Cattelan, who is also famous for the banana on the wall. Interestingly, the gold in the toilet itself is worth just below $10 million at today’s prices. If gold rises to $4900, gold would be worth the price alone. That’s a call option on both the art work and the gold market, making it a surprisingly-reasonable investment.
