Lauder’s Klimt Goes for Record $236 Million at Sotheby’s Auction

A Gustav Klimt portrait of a young Viennese woman set a record auction price for the artist Tuesday when it fetched $236.4 million at Sotheby’s in New York.

The portrait also became the most expensive work of modern art ever sold at auction. The hammer went down for an undisclosed buyer after 20 minutes of bidding from both in the room and by telephone, orchestrated by tuxedo-clad auctioneer Oliver Barker.

“It shows that bidders will compete for a once in a lifetime picture from one of the greatest collectors of our time,” Lisa Dennison, Sotheby’s chair of the ...