Gustav Klimt painting sells for record amount at auction

A Gustav Klimt painting has become the most expensive piece of modern art ever after it was sold at auction. On Tuesday (18 November), The Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer was bought for $236.4m (£180m) by an unnamed buyer following a 20-minute bidding war at Sotheby's. The piece of art, which was painted between 1914 and 1916, is now “the most valuable work of modern art ever sold at auction”, Sotheby’s said. It also becomes the second most expensive piece ever sold. The painting depicts the daughter of one of Vienna's wealthiest families wearing an East Asian emperor's cloak. It was looted by the Nazis and almost destroyed in a fire in the Second World War, but was recovered in 1948.