Portrait sells for $135 million

Ronald Lauder has paid a record price for a painting, exchanging $135 million (£73 million) for a 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt. According to this article in The Telegraph, Mr. Lauder, the son of the late Estee Lauder of cosmetics fame, saw the painting when he was a teenager and fell in love with it, never thinking it might come on the market. He opened his own museum in Manhattan in 2001 called the Neue Galerie and dedicated to early 20th century art, the director of which (the article explains) is excited with the new acquisition. The Telegraph article includes a picture of the painting.

(And, no, I have no idea why the price was so high for something that looks like nothing so much as a woman taking advantage of one of those carnival offerings where you stick your head through a hole in a stage set and get your picture taken for a lark. Mania for 'modern art' eludes me. But if Mr. Lauder is happy, I'm happy.)