This is a record in Europe: the painting by the famous Austrian painter Gustav Klimt was sold for 74 million pounds (more than 86 million euros) at auction in London on Tuesday, June 27. The estimates of Sotheby’s, organizer of the sale, have been exceeded.
The “Lady with a Fan”, a late work by the painter who died in 1918, thus dethrones the previous European record held since February 2010 by a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, “Man Who Walks I”, which was sold at the time for 65 million pounds, already at Sotheby’s.
Sotheby’s, which organized the sale, had presented this work, one of the last paintings by Klimt (1862-1918), as “not only the star of the summer auction season in London, but also the one of the most beautiful and precious ever offered in Europe”. It indicated that it could sell for 65 million pounds, well below the price finally obtained under the hammer, after ten minutes of bidding and breathtaking suspense in the last moments when two potential buyers were still in the running. Once the costs inherent in the sale have been added, the winner, whose identity has not been revealed, will have to pay 85.3 million pounds (nearly 99 million euros).
Gustav Klimt had started the canvas in 1917, a year before his death in 1918 at age 55. We see a dark-haired woman, of unknown identity, dressed in a loose dress and bare shoulders, holding a fan in her hand. Behind her, we find patterns and colors often seen in the artist, such as blue and green birds, flowers on a golden yellow background.
The canvas had been in a private collection since 1994, according to information given by Sotheby’s. It had once belonged to the Viennese industrialist Erwin Bohler, then to his brother, and to the widow of the latter until the 1940s. Much later, in the years 1988, it also belonged to the businessman and American patron Wendell Cherry. “Breathing freedom and spontaneity, (the portrait) reflects Klimt’s joy in painting it and celebrating beauty in its purest form,” according to the auction house.
Last year, at Christie’s New York auction of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s art collection, a Klimt painting, “The Birch Forest,” sold for $104.5 million. dollars at Christie’s in New York. Among other notable sales in Europe, Claude Monet’s “The Water Lilies” sold for £40.9 million at Christie’s in London in June 2008, while René Magritte’s “The Empire of Lights” sold to £59.4 million at Sotheby’s in March 2022.