NEW YORK -- It was a defining moment for the depressed art market when a lush portrait of a woman by Gustav Klimt became the second-most expensive painting ever sold at auction and set a record for the Austrian painter on Tuesday evening. The sale rocketed past its $150 million estimate after more than 19 minutes of bidding to achieve $236.4 million, with fees, at Sotheby's in New York.

Less than an hour later, a gold toilet by conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan -- a functional sculpture -- sold for $12.1 million in the jammed salesroom of the new Sotheby's headquarters on Madison Avenue, the former home of the Whitney Museum designed by Marcel Breuer.

The painting of Elisabeth Lederer, the daughter of Klimt's prominent patrons, came from the estate of cosmetics heir Leonard A. Lauder,

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