Painting by Gustav Klimt broke the European record for the price at auction

A Klimt painting set a European record with a price tag of $108 million at Sotheby’s in London. It is reported that the painting will go to a Hong Kong collector.

A late-life masterpiece by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt sold on Tuesday for £85.3 million ($108.4 million), making it the most expensive piece of art ever to be auctioned in Europe, according to the Associated Press.

“Lady with a Fan” (Dame mit Fächer) – sold to a buyer in the hall at Sotheby’s in London after a 10-minute bidding war for a hammer price of 74 million pounds (94.35 million dollars). The higher end figure includes a premium on the sale price, known as a buyer’s premium, the Associated Press notes.

The Klimt painting also broke the previous European auction record of $104.3 million – £65 million at the time – including the buyer’s premium paid for Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man I sculpture at Sotheby’s in 2010. Previously, the most expensive painting put up for auction in Europe was Claude Monet’s Pool with Nymphaeums, which was sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $80.4 million.

The painting, sold on Tuesday, was Klimt’s last portrait before his death in 1918. The painting depicts an unidentified woman against a background of magnificent dragons and blooming lotuses, made in the Chinese style.

According to Sotheby’s, “Lady with a Fan” was one of two paintings found in the Austrian artist’s studio after his death in 1918.

The work, which the artist had begun a year earlier, in 1917, is done in Klimt’s characteristic rich, expressive style, CNN notes. Like much of his work, it shows the East Asian influence that has shaped his work, not only in the fan held by his unknown sitter, but also in the use of phoenix and lotus flower motifs. At the same time, the flattened perspective of the background is reminiscent of the Japanese wood block prints that figured prominently in the artist’s vast collection of Asian art.

Unusually, it is square in shape and measures approximately one meter (3.3 ft) in both height and width.

Previously, the painting belonged to the Viennese industrialist Erwin Behle, a friend and patron of Klimt. It was later acquired by art collector Rudolf Leopold, who sold it to the current owner’s family in 1994 at an auction in New York for $11.6 million, CNN recalls. . The painting has not been auctioned since, although last year it was on display at the Belvedere, an Austrian museum that houses The Kiss and several other important works by Klimt.

The auction house Sotheby’s called the Klimt portrait his “final masterpiece”, while Thomas Boyd Bowman, head of the auction house’s evening sales of impressionist and modern art, described the painting as “stunning” before the sale.

“The beauty and sensuality of the portrait is in the details: the blues and pinks that bring life to the sitter’s skin, the fluffy lines of her lashes and the pursed lips that give character to her face,” he said in a press release.

Sotheby’s auction reported that the buyer was art consultant Patty Wong, acting on behalf of a Hong Kong collector.

Famed for his bold Art Nouveau paintings, Klimt was a key figure in the artistic modernism of the early 20th century. His works are among the most expensive among all artists.

Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II” was sold at a New York auction in 2006 for $87.9 million, while his landscape “Birch Forest” was sold at Christie’s in New York last year for $104.6 million. dollars.

Two more portraits of him were reportedly sold privately for more than $100 million.

The $450.3 million paid in 2017 for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Savior of the World” remains the world’s highest auction record for a work of art, although some experts dispute whether it is entirely the work of a Renaissance master.