Yes, it takes money to make money. Multi-billionaire, Oprah Winfrey just made a nice little profit her selling her Gustav Klimt. Her 1912 Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II sold for $150 million last summer.
Oprah, who is a noted art collector, originally purchased the painting, one of two portraits the Klimt did of Adele Bloch-Bauer, 10 years ago at Christie’s for $87.9 million. It was sold by the subject’s heirs, after they won a protracted legal battle with the Austrian state museum over five Klimt canvases seized by the Nazis from Bloch-Bauer’s husband during World War II.
The Nazi-looted works were the subject 2015’s Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren as Bloch-Bauer’s niece, and Ryan Reynolds as her lawyer.
In the ten years Winfrey owned the work, its value increased over 70%. It was purchased by an anonymous Chinese collector.
Another major Klimt painting, “Water Serpents II”, sold by Russian billionaire collector Dmitry Rybolovlev in November 2015 for $170 million.
(via Artnet)