Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I ($154.9 Million)

Artist: Gustav Klimt 

Date Painted: 1907 

Type: Oil, silver and gold on canvas 

Sold To: Ronald Lauder, Neue Galerie
Price (Date of Sale): $135 Million (June 18, 2006) 

Adjusted Price Today: ~ $154.9 Million 

Klimt took three years to complete the painting. It measures 54" x 54" [138 x 138 cm] and is made of oil and gold on canvas, showing elaborate and complex ornamentation as seen in the Jugendstil style. 

This painting has had a pretty crazy history, and without trying to go into too much detail: The picture was painted in Vienna and commissioned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. Adele Bloch-Bauer (Ferdinand's wife), in her will, asked her husband to donate the Klimt paintings to the Austrian State Gallery upon his death. She died in 1925 from meningitis. When the Nazis took over Austria, her widowed husband had to flee to Switzerland. His property, including the Klimt paintings, was confiscated. In his 1945 testament, Bloch-Bauer designated his nephew and nieces, including Maria Altmann, as the inheritors of his estate. 

Now, the painting is the centerpiece of Lauder’s collection, Neue Galerie in New York. Lauder’s comment on the acquisition for his Neue Gallerie collection: “This is our Mona Lisa”.