Lauder Heir Donates Klimt Masterpiece and Neue Galerie to the Met, Merging Two Museums
Ronald S. Lauder, Estée Lauder heir, will donate the entire Neue Galerie—along with Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I valued at $135 million and 13 additional Klimt works—to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, effectively merging the two institutions by 2028 and expanding the Met’s holdings of early 20th‑century German and Austrian art.