Gustav Klimt’s Dame mit Faecher (Lady with a Fan) is displayed at Sotheby’s auction room in London on June 20, 2023 (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)
Metropolis Desk-
The most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction in Europe was a late-life masterwork by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, which fetched 85.3 million pounds ($108.4 million).
After a 10-minute bidding war, Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan) was sold to a buyer in the room at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday for a hammer price of 74 million pounds ($94.35 million). The greater total includes a fee known as the buyer’s premium in addition to the sale price.
The sale price was far more than the pre-sale estimate of 65 million pounds ($80 million). The sculpture Walking Man I by Alberto Giacometti sold for $104.3 million, or 65 million pounds, at Sotheby’s in 2010, shattering the previous record for a European auction.
Until recently, Le Basin aux Nymphéas by Claude Monet, which sold for $80.4 million at a Christie’s auction in 2008, was the most expensive painting ever sold at auction in Europe.
The Klimt artwork that was sold on Tuesday was the last portrait the artist finished before his passing in 1918. A mysterious figure is depicted in the picture against a magnificent Chinese-inspired background with dragons and lotus flowers. The artwork was previously sold in 1994 for $11.6 million at a New York auction.
According to Sotheby’s, Patti Wong, an art consultant, purchased the piece on behalf of a Hong Kong collector.
“Appearing on the market for the first time in thirty years, the atmosphere reflected the rarity of the occasion,” Sotheby’s said of those gathered for the auction in London on Tuesday.
The painting climbed to £85.3 million after a ten-minute bidding war between four clients on the phones and in the room, setting a new auction record for a work of art in Europe and for Gustav Klimt, according to Sotheby’s.
The auction house reported that the outcome was also the second-highest price ever paid for a portrait.
Klimt was a significant player in artistic modernism at the beginning of the 20th century and is known for his audacious, art nouveau paintings. Some of the greatest rates for any artist have been paid for his work.
Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II sold for $87.9 million at an auction in New York in 2006, and his landscape Birch Forest brought in $104.6 million at Christie’s in the same city the previous year.
More than $100 million reportedly changed hands privately for two of his pictures.
Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci set a world auction record of $450.3 million in 2017. However, some experts question if the painting of Jesus Christ is entirely the Renaissance master’s creation.
Source- Al Jazeera
