5. Gustav Klimt – Portrait Of Adele Bloch-Bauer
According to The New York Times, the Neue Galerie paid £73 million for the oil painting in a private sale in 2006. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who was a wealthy industrialist who sponsored the arts and the artist. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only model to be painted twice by Klimt; she also appeared in the much more famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. The 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 ensued, which resulted in five Gustav Klimt paintings being returned to Maria Altmann, the niece of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer.