Think about it.

Moreover, the price has not much to do with the painting's history, except for the fact that it comes with a completely legally clean provenance, and is one of Klimt's finest efforts. (As is clear from the troubles at the Getty and the Met, a clean provenance for a masterpiece is worth a lot.) There is only one other klimt masterpiece in private hands -- his "Leda." So what you have is a market valuation: rarity, quality, clean provenance.

Now onto Adele: Klimt is a master of the portrayal of psychological states. Perhaps most clearly in his portraits (as opposed to his mythological or allegorical paintings). A B-B I is peraps his preeminent effort -- his masterpiece. The psychological dimension or Adele, her wants, her needs, her insecurities, her desires, are expressed with exquisite care in her portrait. This is more than the wisdom of the cold goddess, Athena, or the lust of Leda or the passion of the "Kiss." It is multilayered, intense, and bursting forth from every golden detail of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. This portrait is the very apogee of psychological portraiture -- a genre that (arguably) began with da Vinci, and I do not think it has been equalled since.