Explore the Ownership of this artwork, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II.
Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy industrialist who sponsored the arts and supported Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only person whose portrait was painted twice by Klimt; she also appeared in the much more famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Adele's portraits had hung in the family home prior to their seizure by the Nazis during World War II. The Austrian museum where they resided after the war was reluctant to return them to their rightful owners, hence a protracted court battle in the United States and in Austria (see Republic of Austria v. Altmann) ensued, which resulted in the two Adele Bloch-Bauer portraits and three other Gustav Klimt paintings being returned to Maria Altmann, the niece of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, in January 2006.
In November 2006, Christie's auction house sold Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II at auction for almost $88 million, the fourth-highest priced piece of art at auction at the time. The buyer was Oprah Winfrey.The painting was temporarily lent to Neue Galerie New York for the exhibition "Klimt and the Women of Vienna’s Golden Age, 1900–1918", temporarily reuniting it with Portrait I.  In the fall of 2014, Adele Bloch-Bauer II was given as a special long-term loan to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. During the summer of 2016, Winfrey sold it to an unidentified Chinese buyer for $150 million.
Neue Galerie New York Oprah Winfrey Christie's Gustav Klimt Vienna Republic of Austria v. Altmann Museum of Modern Art Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I World War II Maria Altmann