Gustav Klimt’s(1862-1918) ‘Lady with a Fan’ (1917) will be offered at Sotheby’s London Modern and Contemporary evening sale on June 27 at £65M, the highest estimate ever put on a painting in Europe .
Klimt’s last painting (un-commissioned ) freely depicts one of his favourite models : Klimt celebrates beauty innovating with the square format used for landscapes while portraits are traditionally painted in the vertical format.
The model wearing a kimono (Klimt collected kimonos according to Egon Shiele who once described his wardrobe) blends in the colourful background, the kimono slipping on her shoulder confirms the freedom of representation the portrait un-commissioned status offers Klimt.
As Matisse and Gauguin Klimt was fascinated by Asian culture: the model background is rich with Chinese symbols; the phoenix represents immortality, golden pheasant auspisciousness while lotus stands for love and purity. Japanese woodblock prints influence is highly present with patterns juxtaposition and flattening with lack of perspective.
Last sold by Sotheby’s in 1994 with the collection of a US entrepreneur and art collector for $11.6M, it has been with the current owner’s family since. Vienna’s art collector and Shiele and Klimt’s patron Bohler had bought it after Klimt died in 1918.
Klimt ranks just after Picasso and Giacometti as highest artist sale in Europe. Triggered by cosmetics magnate R.Lauder purchase of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1903-07), a Nazi victim restitution from the Belvedere museum in Austria, in a private sale, for $135 million in 2006, it had surpassed the then highest-ever auction price of $104 million for Picasso’s Boy With a Pipe sold at Sotheby’s in 2004.
Klimt’s artworks rarely reach the market consequently triggering substantial realised gains especially regarding his golden period: Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer II(1912) that set a record $87.9M price in 2006 by Christie’s NY was privately sold back in 2016 by its owner (Oprah Winfrey) for $150M…
The current international auction record for a Klimt painting was set at Christie’s Paul Allen collection sale in November 2022 at $104.6 M for Birch Forest (1903).
