The Dow is plunging yet again as Ronald Lauder walks into the calm of the Neue Galerie, his New York collection of early 20th-century German and Austrian art, but he appears relaxed and oblivious to the financial carnage outside. The cosmetics heir, media mogul, campaigner for Jewish causes, collector, power-broker and restaurateur seems to have time to spare.

He insists on giving me a pre-lunch tour of the former Vanderbilt mansion that houses his collection, ushering me up the curving staircase and into Mrs Vanderbilt’s former music room. “Look at this picture! Klimt’s masterpiece,” he says as we admire the shimmering gold portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer that is familiar from too many students’ posters.