(London) European record broken: the painting of the most famous of Austrian painters Gustav Klimt The lady with a fan was sold on Tuesday in London for 74 million pounds ($124 million), exceeding estimates by Sotheby’s, sales organizer.
The Lady with a Fan, a late work by the painter who died in 1918, thus dethroned the previous European record held since February 2010 by a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man I, which had sold at the time for 65 million pounds ($109 million), 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 finest and most valuable ever offered in Europe”.
It indicated that it could sell for 65 million pounds ($109 million), 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 race.
Once the costs inherent in the sale are added, the winner, whose identity has not been revealed, will have to pay 85.3 million pounds ($143 million).
Gustav Klimt had begun the canvas in 1917, a year before his death in 1918 at age 55.
We see a dark-haired woman, of unknown identity, wearing 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 painting 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 1988, it also belonged to American businessman and patron Wendell Cherry.
“Exuding 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. at Christie’s in New York.
Among other notable sales in Europe, Claude Monet’s Water Lilies sold for 40.9 million pounds ($68.7 million) at Christie’s in London in June 2008, while René Magritte’s Empire of Lights sold for £59.4 million ($100 million) at Sotheby’s in March 2022.