Outside OX1 Week 6: Klimt, South East Asia and France

The Editor’s Note

As the term draws to a close and the nights become that little bit more bitter, it’s becoming increasingly more fun to think of Christmas at home. In the meantime, why don’t you do the exact opposite and think abroad? A relatively calm week in politics has meant that this week’s edition of OX1 presents some unique and under-reported stories. While this week’s budget lurks on the horizon, enjoy the relative calm.

Lola Dunton-Milenkovic uncovers a portrait by Gustav Klimt that has sold for $236.4 million, making it the most expensive modern artwork ever sold at auction. The painting has a remarkable history, as it was looted by the Nazis but survived a fire that destroyed other Klimt works because it was deemed “too Jewish” for the exhibition that preceded the fire. The portrait’s subject, Elisabeth Lederer, was a Jewish heiress who fabricated a story that Klimt was her father to protect herself from the Nazis.

Elana Roberts looks to Asia, where devastating typhoons in Southeast Asia, including Kalmaegi and Fung-Wong, have caused widespread casualties and destruction through landslides and floods. In the Philippines, the disaster has intensified public outrage over a corruption scandal involving misappropriated funds for flood management infrastructure. These events underscore how the region, despite its low historical greenhouse gas emissions, is facing increasingly intense storms due to the climate crisis.

Gabriela Austin turns to France. France’s Armed Forces Chief, Fabien Mandon, provoked sharp criticism by declaring that France lacks the societal resolve to accept the casualties and economic strain needed to deter an increasingly aggressive Russia. He warned that Russia is preparing for a confrontation with NATO and urged the nation’s mayors to prepare their communities for potential conflict. While the Defence Minister defended his right to speak on the threat, politicians from the far-left, far-right, and communist parties condemned his remarks as overstepping his role and dangerous warmongering.

Gustav Klimt Portrait Breaks Modern Art Auction Records

Lola Dunton-Milenkovic

In New York on 18 November, a portrait by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt sold for $236.4 million (equivalent to £179 million), making it the second-most expensive piece, and most expensive modern artwork, ever sold at auction.

Six people took part in the 20-minute bidding at the auction house Sotheby’s, seeking to acquire the ‘Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer’. The work was painted between 1914 and 1916, just a few years before Klimt’s death in 1918. The buyer’s identity has not been disclosed.

Standing at six-feet-tall, this portrait of a young heiress is monumental, and it helped save the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust. It features Elisabeth Lederer, the daughter of Klimt’s wealthiest Viennese patrons. According to art historian Emily Braun, Lederer was “an incredibly tragic figure” as she lost everything before the Second World War, dying before its end. With fascism growing in the 1920s, she became a Protestant and married a baron who ultimately divorced her in 1938, the same year that their young son died. Her family proceeded to flee Vienna, but she remained, vulnerable as a single Jewish woman. Thus she claimed that Klimt, already dead and not Jewish, was her father.

This fabrication protected her, establishing her as half-Christian. The lie was easy to believe given that Klimt was a close family friend as well as her drawing instructor, and he had a reputation of fathering a number of children out of wedlock. It was even convincing enough that the Nazis gave her a document stating she was descended from Klimt, allowing her to live safely in Vienna until her death from illness in 1944.

The portrait was looted by the Nazis when they impounded the Lederers’ vast art collections. They showcased many of Klimt’s works in an exhibition in Vienna in 1943, then stored the majority in Schloss Immendorf (Immendorf Castle) in Lower Austria. On 7 May 1945, despite Adolf Hitler being dead, the Reich finished, and German forces in Austria having surrendered, SS soldiers in Schloss Immendorf filled the castle with explosives, causing a fire that burned for days. This destroyed all the rich art treasures stored inside, including 13 Klimt paintings. ‘Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer’ was on the brink of destruction, yet it was saved because family portraits had been excluded from the exhibition for being “too Jewish” to be worth stealing, thus it was separated, stored elsewhere and ultimately spared.

In 1948, the painting was returned to Lederer’s brother Erich. Then, in 1983, it was acquired by art dealer Serge Sabarsky who sold it to the heir of the Estée Lauder cosmetics company, Leonard A. Lauder. It hung in the Lauder home for decades, rarely seen by the general public, until Lauder passed away.

Lauder, part-Hungarian and part-Czech, began collecting Klimt’s art in the 1970s due to his family’s ties to the region. He was, as Braun attests, “a real historian”, influenced by his family heritage, his incredible eye for sheer beauty, and his awareness of what Klimt represented at the apex of Viennese culture. It was in Lauder’s possession that the portrait’s name changed back from ‘Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt’ to its original title, honoring the fact that it was commissioned by her family and denouncing how appallingly she was treated by her husband.

Klimt is best known for his golden period, with gilded Art Nouveau icons like ‘The Kiss’ and ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I’. In the years prior to his death, however, his geometric motifs became more fluid and loose, and he was greatly influenced by East Asian art – seen in the ‘Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer’ with the Chinese figures painted around her as well as  the Chinese dragon robe that serves as a striking symbol of power.

Predicted to sell for $150 million, the portrait smashed expectations, setting a new record for a Klimt painting at auction (surpassing the $108 million set by the sale of ‘Lady with a Fan’ in 2023) and setting groundbreaking records for modern art. It sits behind the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction: ‘Salvator Mundi’, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, sold in 2017 for $450.3 million.

Devastation across South East Asia triggers calls for action

Elana Roberts

This year, the relentless and devastating effects of typhoons across nations in South East Asia exemplify the growing need for extensive storm management infrastructure as climate change intensifies the impacts and frequencies of tropical cyclones. 

In Vietnam, Typhoon Kalmaegi made landfall on 6 November with wind speeds of up to 148km/hr, after leaving a trail of devastation across the Philippines over  several days. On 16 November, the heavy rains from the typhoon triggered a powerful landslide on the Khanh Le Pass, killing six  and injuring 19 on a bus travelling through. 

In Indonesia’s  Central Java province , at least 18 people were killed by landslides triggered by the heavy rain from Typhoon Kalmaegi. The landslides often cut off access to the accident sites, and the constant rain means the conditions for search and rescue efforts have been  highly challenging. Consequently, the National Disaster Management Authority implemented a weather management strategy involving 3000 kilograms of cloud seeding material to divert rainfall. Cloud seeding distributes miniscule ice nuclei across a region, stimulating the formation of clouds around the nuclei.

The Philippines were devastatingly affected by Typhoon Kalmaegi, as 114 people were killed and over 100 more  were declared missing after Kalmaegi’s landfall on 4 November. The Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared a state of emergency on 6 November to allow the government to disperse emergency relief funds to the nearly two  million people who were impacted by Kalmaegi across the Philippines. 

Shortly after, on 9 November, Typhoon Fung-Wong (‘Uwan’ in the Philippines) made landfall. As Fung-Wong had sustained wind speeds of 185km/hr, it was categorised as a supertyphoon according to the Hong Kong Observatory. Over 900,000 people were evacuated from highly impacted areas, putting  the government and aid agencies under pressure to provide food and shelter for them. 

Typhoons (or tropical cyclones) are intense rotating storms that develop over warm tropical oceans in low pressure systems. They typically involve heavy rainfall, powerful winds, and can lead to storm surges, a phenomenon where sea surface is elevated dramatically as a result of the powerful winds in the storm forcing seawater to the coast. 

In many parts of South East Asia, typhoons become most intense between June and November due to the changes in the prevailing wind direction during the summer monsoon season. 

A large proportion of the deaths in the Philippines were due to flash floods resulting from the intense rainfall associated with Kalmaegi and Fung-Wong. This has led to particular outrage across the Philippines in light of recent protests against misappropriation of tax funds which were supposed to be for the reinforcement of flood management schemes. 

In September, the reports of ‘bogus’ flood projects and incomplete plans led to several protests against the perceived corruption in the government. On 21 September, these culminated in a major demonstration in Manila and other cities, with tens of thousands of Filipinos calling for the funds to be returned, and those implicated to be held accountable. 

President Marcos Jr. spoke in favour of the protesters, claiming that their anger was justified and stating that if not for his position, he might be “out in the streets with them”. In the government, the Senate President Francis Escudero and the house speaker Martin Roualdez (who is a cousin of Marcos Jr.) stepped down following the scandal. 

The protests have only been strengthened by the impacts of the typhoons. On 16 November, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gathered in Manila for a three day protest. It remains to be seen how the government will respond, and whether the money allocated for the flood projects will be reimbursed to the taxpayers, or reallocated to other government projects. 

Climate scientists have warned that typhoons are only likely to intensify and become more frequent as a result of climate change. The Filipino  delegation at COP30, and several organisations such as the Catholic aid network Caritas, have emphasised that many of the nations in South East Asia will face the brunt of the impacts of climate change despite being some of the lowest historical emitters of greenhouse gases. 

As the impacts of climate change become ever clearer, the importance of responding to the climate crisis is vital. 

French Military Chief sparks outcry after call to “accept losing our children” to Russia

Gabriela Austin

Speaking on 18 November, French Armed Forces Chief Fabien Mandon provoked sharp criticism from politicians across the spectrum. He declared to an assembly of mayors that France must be willing to accept casualties and economic strain if it hopes to deter Russia, arguing that the country lacks the societal resolve needed for such a challenge. 

Mandon warned that although  France possesses the economic and military capacity to confront Moscow, it lacks what he termed the “strength of soul” to sustain sacrifice at home. He urged mayors to prepare communities mentally and logistically, arguing that if France “flinches” from bearing human losses or shifts its economic priorities toward defence production, then the country would be “at risk.” 

In his speech, Mandon placed Russia as a direct threat to European safety, laying out his belief that Russia is preparing for a confrontation in Europe by 2030, with it viewing NATO as its existential rival. He traced a path of escalating Russian aggression: from the 2008 war in Georgia, to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, to the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, warning that this is not necessarily the final example of hostilities on the continent. Mandon urged mayors to prepare for worst-case scenarios, including drone assaults and conventional escalation. He is of the firm belief that deterrence only works if adversaries consider France (and the European Union) to have the social will to hold firm.

Mandon himself is an experienced air force general and former fighter pilot. In  July 2025, President Macron appointed him as Chief of the General Staff, making him the first airman to occupy the role in thirty years. This speech also comes just two weeks after Mandon was granted tenure.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left wing party La France Insoumise, said Mandon was overstepping his role, arguing it was not for the military alone to forecast societal sacrifices rooted in what he called the government’s “diplomatic failures”. The French Communist Party’s Fabien Roussel denounced the rhetoric as “dangerous” and “unbearable”, calling instead for a rejection of warmongering. Sébastien Chenu of the far-right National Rally claimed Mandon lacked “the legitimacy” to alarm the population in such existential terms. However, Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin, formerly a member of centre-right Les Républicains, came to Mandon’s defence. She said that he was “fully entitled to express his views on the threats that continue to grow,” adding that France must avoid confrontation whilst nevertheless preparing for it. “Our policy is to do everything to avoid war but at the same time prepare, and consolidate that collective moral force without which no nation can survive the test” said Vautrin.

Having told MPs in October that a clash with Moscow could come within “three or four years”, Mandon’s warning echoes broader European anxieties. Whether his message will reshape public debate, or further polarise it, remains to be seen.