What price the lady's eyes

Don’t you think it’s fascinating that a single painting can command such a price at auction? I do. I sometimes wonder how much I would pay for a work of art, were money no object to me. I have a similar personal question about what car I would buy for myself, if I had enough money to buy any car I took a fancy to. I suspect I would go no further than a state-of-the-art Audi or BMW. I really couldn’t buy a Rolls Royce, Aston Martin or Ferrari.

I think if I were able to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a single work of art I would have to put it on public display. Why would a person want to hide such a remarkable work from public view? Presumably to satisfy some petty vanity that has something to do with having command of an unconscionable level of financial clout.

“Are you a collector?” Is a question I have sometimes been asked when I have attended a private viewing at a small art dealer’s gallery in London. “Not really,” I might reply, a little dishonestly. Certainly I do not make a habit of buying art to add to my collection but I have bought a small number of works over the years. Little things I have taken a shine to. £20, £50, and one or twice as much as UK£200. Some are hanging in our suburban home, some awaiting wall space. Some are just kept for future appreciation.

Once, I spent what was to me a huge sum of money on a work I saw in an exhibition. How could I justify this? Well, I had recently benefited from a small legacy from my parents. I know my father would have approved, though I suspect Mum would have questioned the cost of such a frivolity.

There is one work in particular that I would like to see hanging in my home. It is the Weeping Woman by Picasso.

It currently resides in Tate Modern in London. I am a volunteer visitor host at Tate’s two London Art museums. Whenever I see this painting I try to think how I could steal it. I wouldn’t keep it, you understand. I would just hang it on a wall and study it for a week or two, love it, appreciate it.

It would be worth the jail time, really. I would in any case have to return it to the public collection that Tate, and so many art museums around the world, are responsible for. I would just like to be selfish enough to want to admire and study this glorious painting for a short while. To be able to wake and sleep with it.

To this extent I am at one with the anonymous buyer of this astounding painting by Klimt. I do not think I have seen eyes like this in any work outside of the British Museum’s Egypt collections. To me, what is the difference between having hundreds of millions of dollars in a 'let's buy some art' fund, and stealing a work worth $200 millions or more? No, tell me, really. What is the difference?

There is some interesting history to this painting. I could summarise it in my own words but I wouldn't do a better job than my AI friend Gemini. A great resource for historical and other research work. You think AI is a shit of a development for this 21st century? Think what you like. I am not going to put time and effort into researching something that can be got at a touch of a button. Bite me!

Here is what Gemini has to offer about this painting...

Life and Persecution

Marriage and Divorce: Elisabeth, daughter of Klimt's major patrons, the wealthy Jewish industrialist Lederer family, married Wolfgang Freiherr von Bachofen von Echt in 1921 and converted to Protestantism. They had a son, but divorced in 1938 following the child's death at age four.

Nazi Annexation: When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Elisabeth and her family, who were Jewish, became targets of persecution. The Nazis confiscated the vast Lederer art collection.

The Life-Saving Lie: To escape deportation and death, Elisabeth claimed that the non-Jewish Gustav Klimt was her biological father, the result of an adulterous affair with her mother, Serena Lederer. Her mother backed up the story in writing. Art historians later determined this was a fabrication.

Temporary Safety: The Nazi Reich Department for Genealogical Research accepted the claim, allowing Elisabeth to be classified as "half-Aryan." This deception protected her from the worst of the Holocaust and spared her from being sent to a concentration camp.

Death: Tragically, Elisabeth did not survive the war; she died from a severe illness in Vienna on October 19, 1944.

The story of Elisabeth Lederer after her portrait was painted by Gustav Klimt (between 1914 and 1916) is marked by her marriage, the tragic loss of her child, and a desperate act that ultimately saved her life during the Holocaust.

The Portrait's Fate

Looting and Survival: Unlike a significant portion of the Lederer art collection, including many Klimt works, which were destroyed in a fire at Immendorf Castle in 1945, the Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer survived the war. It was believed that the family portraits were separated from the main collection, possibly deemed "too Jewish" to be worth stealing, according to some reports.

Restitution: After the war, the portrait surfaced on the art market but was eventually restituted in 1948 to Elisabeth's brother, Erich Lederer, an artist and prominent art collector.

Later Sales: The painting remained in Erich Lederer's possession until he sold it in 1983. It was later acquired by American collector Leonard A. Lauder in 1985. In November 2025, the portrait sold at auction for over $236 million, setting a record for the most valuable piece of modern art sold at auction at that time.

Elisabeth Lederer's portrait is now a poignant symbol of the family's patronage of Klimt and her own dramatic story of survival against Nazi persecution.

End of AI text

Fuck what the portrait is a poignant symbol of. I would like to see the painting someday and suspect I never will.

To me, those eyes have it

Thanks for reading my arty-farty ramblings

Love you all

Raymondo