The $135 Million Portrait

Last Monday, The Greats Plotnik and Ducknik got off the bus on Fifth Avenue in The Big Shmapple and attempted to go into the Met. (That's Metropolitan Museum of Art, not Shea Stadium, where the Mets play.) But the Met is closed on Mondays, which forced Plottie to sit down on the huge concrete stairs and take out his guidebook. (There were more people sitting on the stairs in front of the Met when it was closed than in any museum in Saint Plotniko when it is open.) In his "Seven Walks in New York City" guide he noticed another, far smaller museum a few blocks up the street. It is called the Neue Museum and features the works of German and Austrian painters, sculptors and other artists from the golden age in Vienna, circa 1880-1920.

Flashback: when the Plotniks were in Vienna a few years ago they happened upon the fabulous Museum of the City of Vienna, in which practically the entire history of Europe is chronicled in its art collection. There, they fell in love with Gustav Klimt. Duck bought a print of a Klimt (which does NOT rhyme, dammit). It hangs today above her desk.

The Neue Museum is housed in an aristocratic Fifth Avenue brownstone with polished floors and winding stair railings, crystal chandeliers and more marble than the top of Dick Cheney's head. You walk up a grand staircase to get to the collection, which begins on the second floor. The very first painting you see upon entering is this Klimt. It is entitled "Portrait of Mrs. Bloch-Bauer."

The photo doesn't do it justice -- it's very large, a combination of paint and gilt, etching and portraiture. It's modernist and very cool. The whole museum is cool. It is startling to realize what the Viennese had going on at the turn of the 20th century -- in all the arts, including music -- it was simply the most creative and innovate cultural center on the planet. Plus all that pastry.

Afterwards, the Plotniks had dinner with friends who asked: "Did you see the $135 million Klimt?"

"Say what?" asked Plotnik.

Turns out that the Neue Gallery is run on money from the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune. Two interesting things: Estee Lauder's real name was Esther Mintz and she was from Corona, Queens, NY. And her son, Ronald Lauder, founded the museum and recently paid, yup, $135 Million for the Klimt that hangs at the entrance to the gallery, the painting to which the Plotniks' reaction was: "Cool."

Cool? Cool? For $135 million? Do you realize what $135 million can buy in today's world? Well, for God's sake, a home run hitting third baseman and a stud left handed pitcher, that's what, and now that the Plotzers are done for the year The Great Plotnik is angry that Ronald Lauder spent his money so frivolously.