by Gustav Klimt Dame mit Fäscher (Lady with a Fan), 1917-18, fetched £74 million ($94.3 million) at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary auction in London on June 27, setting a record for a work sold at a European auction. An additional $14.1 million was attached to the price, bringing the total to $108.4 million. The work of the famous Austrian artist broke the record previously held by sculptor Alberto Giacometti. walking man I1960, which fetched $92.5 million, or $104.3 million with fees, at a Sotheby’s sale in London in 2010. The highest amount previously commissioned by a painting at a sale at European auction was $80.4 million, for Claude Monet from 1919 The Nymph Pond in 2008, at a Christie’s sale in London.
The sale is sure to draw a sigh of relief from the London art world, whose blood has seemed to ebb in recent years as Brexit has taken hold, narrowing the arteries connecting it to Europe.
Last auctioned by Sotheby’s New York in 1994 for a relatively small $11.6 million, the work was guaranteed to fetch at least $80 million, thanks to a minimum price promised before the sale. by a third party guarantor. According to multiple reports, the appearance of the Klimt – which, although unsigned, was still on the easel in the artist’s studio at the time of his death – sparked fierce competition between three bidders, with the dealer based in Hong Kong Patti Wong, a former president of Sotheby’s Asia, winning the award on behalf of a Hong Kong collector.
Klimt, the leader of Vienna’s secessionists, has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity over the past two decades or so, culminating previously with the sale in New York last November of the artist’s 1903 landscape. birch forest, which hammered in $104.6 million including fees. The world record for the most expensive work at auction is held by Leonardo da Vinci around 1500 Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World), which fetched $450.3 million at a Christie’s sale in New York in 2017.
