Gustav Klimt’s last portrait sells for record £85.3m

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The last portrait painted by artist Gustav Klimt before his death has sold for £85.3m ($108.4m) at a London auction.

Sotheby’s said the sale of “Lady With A Fan (Dame Mit Facher)” in New Bond Street is a new record for Klimt and has become the most valuable work of art sold at auction in Europe.

Helena Newman, auctioneer and chairman of Sotheby’s Europe said: “‘Dame Mit Facher (Lady With A Fan)’ is an absolute testament to Klimt’s artistic genius – a work that captured the imagination of everyone who saw it.

“It was an honour to see that high level of enthusiasm play out here in London tonight, and to see the painting so hotly pursued.

“And it was, of course, the greatest honour to bring down the hammer on a work that has, quite fittingly, made auction history.”

In 2010, the auction house sold Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti’s bronze sculpture “L’homme Qui Marche I” (”Walking Man I”) for $104.3m (£65m) in London.

Klimt, also famed for his work “The Kiss” (“Der Kuss”), died unexpectedly in 1918 at the age of 55.

He began work on “Lady With A Fan” in 1917, by which time he was among the most celebrated portrait artists in Europe, receiving commissions at prices far higher than his contemporaries.

“Lady With a Fan” was acquired shortly after his death by Viennese industrialist Erwin Boohler, whose family were close friends and patrons of both Klimt and fellow painter Egon Schiele. It was last sold at Sotheby’s in New York in 1994 for £7.8m – which set a record for the artist at the time.

His “Birch Forest” artwork fetched $104.6m (£81.6m) last year when it was sold at Christie’s.

The auction house said that after 10 minutes bidding, the work went to a collector from Hong Kong.

Newman was quick to notice how the phoenix symbolism in the painting struck a chord with bidders from the region. James Roundell, a former head of Impressionist and modern art at Christie’s, also stressed the appeal of the decorative elements in Klimt’s work to Asian buyers.

Buyers in Asia have, in recent years, snapped up two more of Klimt’s work for a total sum of $320m.

“Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II”, previously owned by Oprah Winfrey, was sold in 2016 for $150m in one of the biggest private art deals of that year, Bloomberg reported.

The previous year, “Water Serpents II” (1904-1907) was sold privately by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $170 million.

Klimt began studying East Asian art as early as the 1890s. He wasinitially interested primarily in Japanese art, but also Chinese and Korean styles. In 2019, two exhibitions, Gustav Klimt: Vienna-Japan 1900” and “Vienna on the Path to Modernism” were held in Japan, celebrating the Austrian artists oriental influence, despite him never setting foot in the country.

“Lady with Fan” even had a dedicated exhibition at the Belvedere in Wien in 2021, exploring Oriental art’s deep influence on the auctioned work.

As explained by the curators, “Lady with Fan” was clearly inspired by Klimt’s vast assortment of Asian artworks included Bijin-ga, which were depictions of renowned beauties such as courtesans and geishas in Japanese painting. The painting background is for instance a reference to Snow, Utagawa Kuniteru’s colored woodcut.

Klimt and the Secessionists brought Japanese art to Viennese society for the first time during their sixth exhibition, which solely focused on its aesthetics. Klimt drew significant inspiration from East Asian and particularly Japanese art, resulting in the creation of his acclaimed masterpieces such as “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (1907), “Portrait of Eugenia Primavesi” (1913/14), and “Baby” (”Cradle”) (1917/18).

Despite Asian collectors’ eagerness to anchor their art holdings with Western masterpieces, there is no doubt that Klimt’s influences will continue to attract deep-pocketed buyers from the region.

Additional reporting by Press Association