NY museum pays over €100m for Klimt portrait

AN oil and gold-encrusted portrait by Gustav Klimt has been purchased for a record-breaking amount by a New York museum.

The 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer — one of the most recognisable of the 20th century — was sold by Bloch-Bauer’s niece, Maria Altmann and her family, her lawyer Steven Thomas said.

The painting had been the focus of a battle between the Austrian government and the subject’s Los Angeles-based niece.