A Tale of Two Museums

Part I: Neue Galerie

Jun 08, 2025

Hi History Lovers,

Sometimes it’s fun to play tourist in your own town, especially when that town is New York City. This weekend, I took two back-to-back “staycation” days with my husband and visited two exhibits I’ve long wanted to see.

Housed in a stunning 1914 Beaux-Arts mansion once home to society doyenne, Grace Vanderbilt,1 Neue Galerie occupies one of the few surviving Gilded Age mansions on Fifth Avenue (1048 Fifth Avenue).

Opened in 2001, the gallery is the creation of philanthropist and art collector, Ronald S. Lauder2 and Viennese born art dealer, Serge Sabarsky, friends who shared a passion for 20th century Austrian and German art and design.

A stunning wrought-iron spiral staircase transports visitors from the elegant foyer to the second floor gallery capped by a domed stained-glass skylight. (The third-floor gallery was closed during our visit).

The second floor showcases paintings, furnishings and other decorative art from the museum’s permanent collection. The star attraction is the famed “Woman in Gold” (1907) by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt.

The inspiration for the 2015 film starring Helen Mirren, Klimt's portrait of Viennese socialite Adele Bloch Bauer is one of several Jewish owned works of art on display that were seized by the Nazis during WW2 and only recently restored to their rightful heir(s).

We capped off our visit with dinner at the gallery’s Cafe Sabarsky. Tucked into a banquette upholstered with a 1912 Otto Wagner fabric, we sipped cocktails and dined on ghoulash soup and Wiener Schnitze (for the Hubs), and smoked trout crepes with horseradish creme fraiche and white asparagus and potatoes in Hollandaise sauce (for me), all amid a backdrop of American Songbook classics played on the resident Bösendorfer grand piano.

A generous slice of Mozarttorte (pistachio and chocolate nougat cake), one of a dizzying selecion of Viennese desserts on offer, made a perfect share.