Gustav KLIMT (1862-1918)
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : The Woman Landscape Alps Flowers Animals Bird Orientalism
Chronology : 1900-1909 1902 1903 1907 1910-1919 1912 1913 1915 1917 1918
See also : The Woman Landscape Alps Flowers Animals Bird Orientalism
Chronology : 1900-1909 1902 1903 1907 1910-1919 1912 1913 1915 1917 1918
Attersee
1
masterpiece
1900
Leopold Museum
From 1900 to 1907 Gustav Klimt spends the summer in the small village of Litzlberg on the Attersee in the Austrian Alps of Salzkammergut. Far away from the hectic life of Vienna, he has a quiet pastime including swim in the lake and outdoor painting after breakfast when the weather is fine, plus an optional swim and second painting session in the afternoon, "early to bed, early to rise in the next morning".
Like Monet he does not feel like a tourist and is not appealed by panoramic views. He is serenely looking for the deep essence of nature, catching its texture in square format. Monet also had used this solution.
In an oil on canvas 80 x 80 cm of the Attersee painted in 1900, nearly the whole surface is occupied by the turquoise spots in grazing incidence against the misty sunlight. The surface of the lake is lapping in shimmering shades from green in the forefront to bluish violet in the distance.
The sunrise and the horizon appear in a very narrow area where the sun is trimmed. Please watch the video shared by the Leopold Museum.
Klimt's textures express a sensation that anticipates the abstraction.
Like Monet he does not feel like a tourist and is not appealed by panoramic views. He is serenely looking for the deep essence of nature, catching its texture in square format. Monet also had used this solution.
In an oil on canvas 80 x 80 cm of the Attersee painted in 1900, nearly the whole surface is occupied by the turquoise spots in grazing incidence against the misty sunlight. The surface of the lake is lapping in shimmering shades from green in the forefront to bluish violet in the distance.
The sunrise and the horizon appear in a very narrow area where the sun is trimmed. Please watch the video shared by the Leopold Museum.
Klimt's textures express a sensation that anticipates the abstraction.
2
1901-1902 Insel im Attersee
2023 SOLD for $ 53M by Sotheby's
In 1901 or 1902 Klimt paints a remake of his 1900 Attersee view. In a move that anticipates by a few years Monet's Nymphéas, he gets rid of the horizon in another square format. The shore is maintained but looks far away. A green area of foliage without details on the right, already visible in the 1900 picture, is an island in Litzlberg.
Klimt did not depart from this improved replica, certainly made for his own pleasure. This oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm was sold for $ 53M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2023, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Klimt did not depart from this improved replica, certainly made for his own pleasure. This oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm was sold for $ 53M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2023, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1902 Gertrud Loew
2015 SOLD for £ 25M by Sotheby's
Gustav Klimt renewed the art of women's portrait. They are shown standing full length in very narrow formats that can focus attention on the model without being disturbed by her surroundings. At the top of the image, the face brings a contrast compared to the clothes for which the artist realizes a diaphanous or golden texture depending on which emotional or empathetic effect he wishes to express.
Director of a major private sanatorium in Vienna, Dr. Loew was in touch with the intellectual and artistic elite of the city and became a sponsor of the Viennese Secession. In 1902 he commissioned Klimt for the portrait of his daughter Gertrud aged 19.
Gertrud Loew is a nice girl. Her quiet gaze is attentively facing the painter. The light gauze of her housecoat is white, adorned with a few vertical lilac stripes in a clear overall tone that expresses purity. This very successful portrait, oil on canvas 150 x 45 cm, has repeatedly been exhibited during Klimt's lifetime and contributed to his fame.
This painting belonged to Gertrud who had to give up all her belongings when she went into exile in 1939. It then belonged to Gustav Ucicky who was an illegitimate son of the artist and afterward to his widow Ursula. Fascinated by the art of her father-in-law, Mrs Ucicky created in 2013 the Gustav Klimt Foundation. She understood that the portrait of Gertrud had been a Nazi spoliation and accepted its restitution.
This beautiful example of a portrait of a very young woman by Klimt was sold for £ 25M from a lower estimate of £ 12M by Sotheby's on June 24, 2015, lot 26. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Director of a major private sanatorium in Vienna, Dr. Loew was in touch with the intellectual and artistic elite of the city and became a sponsor of the Viennese Secession. In 1902 he commissioned Klimt for the portrait of his daughter Gertrud aged 19.
Gertrud Loew is a nice girl. Her quiet gaze is attentively facing the painter. The light gauze of her housecoat is white, adorned with a few vertical lilac stripes in a clear overall tone that expresses purity. This very successful portrait, oil on canvas 150 x 45 cm, has repeatedly been exhibited during Klimt's lifetime and contributed to his fame.
This painting belonged to Gertrud who had to give up all her belongings when she went into exile in 1939. It then belonged to Gustav Ucicky who was an illegitimate son of the artist and afterward to his widow Ursula. Fascinated by the art of her father-in-law, Mrs Ucicky created in 2013 the Gustav Klimt Foundation. She understood that the portrait of Gertrud had been a Nazi spoliation and accepted its restitution.
This beautiful example of a portrait of a very young woman by Klimt was sold for £ 25M from a lower estimate of £ 12M by Sotheby's on June 24, 2015, lot 26. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1903 Birch Forest
2022 SOLD for $ 105M by Christie's
Gustav Klimt is the leader of the Sezessionsstil, or Viennese Secession, which he created in 1898 for the promotion of a new art including the utilitarian arts. He is the friend of Emilie Flöge who runs an avant-garde fashion house with her sisters. Gustav's art is made up of very rich textures that can be applied to Emilie's dresses. Helene Flöge is the widow of Gustav's younger brother.
Gustav's symbolism is charged with an eroticism which shocks the Viennese. He is not afraid of scandal but needs rest. He spends summers in Litzlberg on the Attersee, where he is the guest of the Flöge family.
In this tranquil atmosphere, Gustav maintains another art for his own pleasure. He paints outdoors the landscapes of forests, clearings and ponds on square formats, like Monet is doing at the same time. He does not forget the application to women's clothing, for which depth and horizon are of no use.
An oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1903 was sold by Christie's on November 8, 2006 for $ 40M, lot 51 coming from the restitution to the heirs of the Bloch-Bauer family. It was sold for $ 105M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 17. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The birch trees form an unlimited pattern of vertical streaks with no horizon. The variable width of the trunks cancels the vanishing points, superseded by the overlaid arrangement of the color strokes. The leaves on the ground are painted with spots inspired by pointillism which bring a sparkle of colors.
Klimt's attention to the applied arts has taken him beyond post-impressionism up to the limits of an immersive abstraction.
Gustav's symbolism is charged with an eroticism which shocks the Viennese. He is not afraid of scandal but needs rest. He spends summers in Litzlberg on the Attersee, where he is the guest of the Flöge family.
In this tranquil atmosphere, Gustav maintains another art for his own pleasure. He paints outdoors the landscapes of forests, clearings and ponds on square formats, like Monet is doing at the same time. He does not forget the application to women's clothing, for which depth and horizon are of no use.
An oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1903 was sold by Christie's on November 8, 2006 for $ 40M, lot 51 coming from the restitution to the heirs of the Bloch-Bauer family. It was sold for $ 105M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 17. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The birch trees form an unlimited pattern of vertical streaks with no horizon. The variable width of the trunks cancels the vanishing points, superseded by the overlaid arrangement of the color strokes. The leaves on the ground are painted with spots inspired by pointillism which bring a sparkle of colors.
Klimt's attention to the applied arts has taken him beyond post-impressionism up to the limits of an immersive abstraction.
1907 Bauerngarten
2017 SOLD for £ 48M by Sotheby's
The greatest artists express their vision of the world. Klimt goes further : he wants to change the life.
The Klimt and Flöge families are closely linked. Gustav Klimt becomes the brother-in-law of Helene Flöge in 1891 and her tutor in the following year. Helene and her sister Emilie open a business of couture and fashion in Vienna in 1904. Emilie was Gustav's companion from 1891 until the artist's death in 1918.
The Schwestern Flöge workshop is experimenting with new garments for the Viennese avant-garde, including loose dresses hung from the shoulders without using a corset. The very famous blouses of Gustav Klimt, which give him such a neglected attitude according to the conceptions of today's fashion, proceed from the same trend.
The shape of the garment is not enough : women also deserve a shimmering decoration. Gustav observes trees and flowers as patterns of texture. Their bright colors were created by nature. Gustav does not cancel the shapes of the flowers. If he had, he would have been the first abstract artist.
Gustav reveals the woman's head as the only realistic element in his portraits. The body is hidden by an ample garment whose limits loosely overlap the background of the image and whose details are luxurious and colorful. Adele Bloch-Bauer I, oil on canvas 138 x 138 cm painted in 1907, was sold for $ 135M on June 18, 2006 in a private sale by Christie's to Ronald Lauder.
On March 1, 2017, Sotheby's sold for £ 48M as lot 11 Bauerngarten, oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1907 during the holidays of Gustav at the Attersee. Poppies, daisies and zinnias spread their colors in an endless meadow with no horizon. These flowers are dominated by a triangle of roses that confirms the artist's intention for the design of a dress.
Please watch the very short video shared by the auction house.
The Klimt and Flöge families are closely linked. Gustav Klimt becomes the brother-in-law of Helene Flöge in 1891 and her tutor in the following year. Helene and her sister Emilie open a business of couture and fashion in Vienna in 1904. Emilie was Gustav's companion from 1891 until the artist's death in 1918.
The Schwestern Flöge workshop is experimenting with new garments for the Viennese avant-garde, including loose dresses hung from the shoulders without using a corset. The very famous blouses of Gustav Klimt, which give him such a neglected attitude according to the conceptions of today's fashion, proceed from the same trend.
The shape of the garment is not enough : women also deserve a shimmering decoration. Gustav observes trees and flowers as patterns of texture. Their bright colors were created by nature. Gustav does not cancel the shapes of the flowers. If he had, he would have been the first abstract artist.
Gustav reveals the woman's head as the only realistic element in his portraits. The body is hidden by an ample garment whose limits loosely overlap the background of the image and whose details are luxurious and colorful. Adele Bloch-Bauer I, oil on canvas 138 x 138 cm painted in 1907, was sold for $ 135M on June 18, 2006 in a private sale by Christie's to Ronald Lauder.
On March 1, 2017, Sotheby's sold for £ 48M as lot 11 Bauerngarten, oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1907 during the holidays of Gustav at the Attersee. Poppies, daisies and zinnias spread their colors in an endless meadow with no horizon. These flowers are dominated by a triangle of roses that confirms the artist's intention for the design of a dress.
Please watch the very short video shared by the auction house.
The New York Times Thinks Sotheby’s Is Getting Frisky with Its Klimt https://t.co/3mgODvO8HY pic.twitter.com/etX2peYay3
— Art Market Monitor (@artmarket) February 24, 2017
masterpiece
1908 Liebespaar (The Kiss)
Belvedere, Vienna
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Adele Bloch-Bauer
1
masterpiece
1907 I
Neue Galerie, New York
In 1899 Adele Bauer, 18, marries Ferdinand Bloch, 35. Ferdinand is a wealthy sugar industrialist. Well introduced in the Viennese society, Adele likes to bring together writers, politicians and intellectuals in her salon.
At this time Gustav Klimt is introducing an unprecedented luxury into modern painting. Inspired by the mosaic of Empress Theodora in the Basilica of Ravenna, he offers a new vision of the ideal woman, sumptuously dressed in a patchwork of gold, silver and sometimes platinum leaves.
Adele serves as a model in 1901 for Judith, which is a pinnacle of eroticism in Klimt's art. The husband is not jealous. In 1903 he begins to buy paintings from Klimt and commissions a portrait of his wife.
Klimt works for four years on this picture decorated with gold and silver. In his sublime style, the figuration does not reveal any nudity and the Bloch-Bauers can hang this painting 138 x 138 cm in their living room. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Bloch-Bauer collection, also including three landscapes by Klimt, was plundered by the Nazis after the Anschluss. It was returned after a long trial in 2004 to the legitimate heiress, who dispersed it with the help of Christie's.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold in private sale to Ronald Lauder in June 2006 for $ 135M, the highest price known for a painting at that time. The other four works were sold separately at auction by Christie's on November 8, 2006. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M. The three landscapes were sold respectively for $ 40M, $ 33M and $ 31.4M.
At this time Gustav Klimt is introducing an unprecedented luxury into modern painting. Inspired by the mosaic of Empress Theodora in the Basilica of Ravenna, he offers a new vision of the ideal woman, sumptuously dressed in a patchwork of gold, silver and sometimes platinum leaves.
Adele serves as a model in 1901 for Judith, which is a pinnacle of eroticism in Klimt's art. The husband is not jealous. In 1903 he begins to buy paintings from Klimt and commissions a portrait of his wife.
Klimt works for four years on this picture decorated with gold and silver. In his sublime style, the figuration does not reveal any nudity and the Bloch-Bauers can hang this painting 138 x 138 cm in their living room. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Bloch-Bauer collection, also including three landscapes by Klimt, was plundered by the Nazis after the Anschluss. It was returned after a long trial in 2004 to the legitimate heiress, who dispersed it with the help of Christie's.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold in private sale to Ronald Lauder in June 2006 for $ 135M, the highest price known for a painting at that time. The other four works were sold separately at auction by Christie's on November 8, 2006. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M. The three landscapes were sold respectively for $ 40M, $ 33M and $ 31.4M.
2
1912 II
2006 SOLD for $ 88M by Christie's
Klimt's relation with the Bloch-Bauers remained excellent. Adele will be the only woman of whom Klimt has painted two portraits. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which joins the previous opus in 1912 in the Bloch-Bauer living room, is an oil on canvas 190 x 120 cm. The standing Adele is dressed in gray and white in front of a richly colored background. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M from a lower estimate of $ 40M by Christie's on November 8, 2006. The media buzz has certainly influenced such a high price.
The lot escaped Lauder. It will be known later that it had been bought by Oprah Winfrey. It reached a new peak in 2016 when Oprah sold it in a private sale for $ 150M to a Chinese collector.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M from a lower estimate of $ 40M by Christie's on November 8, 2006. The media buzz has certainly influenced such a high price.
The lot escaped Lauder. It will be known later that it had been bought by Oprah Winfrey. It reached a new peak in 2016 when Oprah sold it in a private sale for $ 150M to a Chinese collector.
1912 Apfelbaum
2006 SOLD for $ 33M by Christie's
With Gustav Klimt, ornamentation becomes a major art. Through his connivance with his companion the milliner Emilie Flöge, he invents new patterns that can be applied to the shimmering garments of the ladies.
He spends his summers in Litzlberg on the Attersee. Far from the professional obligations of Vienna, he is temporarily released from portraits, allegories and even eroticism. He seeks the truth of nature in the elementary forms of landscape and garden. His canvases are square to cancel out the overall vision and the distance. His most frequent format, 110 x 110 cm, is used outdoors in front of the subject, just like the canvases around 80 x 100 cm painted by Monet in front of his pond.
Klimt is influenced by Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists. Shades of greenery are interwoven in energetic brushstrokes. The colorful spots of the flowers provide rhythm and anchor points. Realism is in the details and not in the reconstruction.
One of the earliest examples, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, is a Rosen unter Bäumen painted in 1904 or 1905, with a tiny horizon in the right corner that helps to perceive the outward shape of the trees. A view of flowers in various sizes and colors painted in 1907 was sold for £ 48M by Sotheby's in 2017.
On November 8, 2006, Christie's sold at lot 53 for $ 33M Apfelbaum, oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1912 which came from the Bloch-Bauer restitution. The image is shared by Wikimedia. The color contrasts are provided by the red apples inserted into the foliage and by a narrow flowerbed at the bottom of the picture.
He spends his summers in Litzlberg on the Attersee. Far from the professional obligations of Vienna, he is temporarily released from portraits, allegories and even eroticism. He seeks the truth of nature in the elementary forms of landscape and garden. His canvases are square to cancel out the overall vision and the distance. His most frequent format, 110 x 110 cm, is used outdoors in front of the subject, just like the canvases around 80 x 100 cm painted by Monet in front of his pond.
Klimt is influenced by Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists. Shades of greenery are interwoven in energetic brushstrokes. The colorful spots of the flowers provide rhythm and anchor points. Realism is in the details and not in the reconstruction.
One of the earliest examples, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, is a Rosen unter Bäumen painted in 1904 or 1905, with a tiny horizon in the right corner that helps to perceive the outward shape of the trees. A view of flowers in various sizes and colors painted in 1907 was sold for £ 48M by Sotheby's in 2017.
On November 8, 2006, Christie's sold at lot 53 for $ 33M Apfelbaum, oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1912 which came from the Bloch-Bauer restitution. The image is shared by Wikimedia. The color contrasts are provided by the red apples inserted into the foliage and by a narrow flowerbed at the bottom of the picture.
1913 Cassone
2010 SOLD for £ 27M by Sotheby's
It is illusory to represent a volume on a canvas or on a photograph. Klimt takes this into account in his paintings, whatever the subject.
He does not work from a photo, but his removal of the perspective seems to be independent of Cézanne's deconstructions. He finds textures and geometric elements in the landscape, using a viewfinder made up of a hole in a cardboard. Later a friend will give him an ivory eyeglass.
After choosing his elements, Klimt reassembles them in square formats. His villages can be compared to the accumulations of houses in Krumau by Schiele. Both artists thus obtain a personification of the buildings in their compositions with no characters. Their final effect, however, is in opposition. Schiele wants to annihilate his haunted city but Klimt is on holidays : his colors are happy.
In 1913, Gustav Klimt spent his summer time in the vicinity of Garda Lake. He did not work much: three paintings in two months! This is a proof that he was particularly enchanted by the village of Cassone.
His oil on canvas shows many houses clustered on the slopes of the hill, along with the church and cypresses. The square format, 110 x 110 cm, is the best to convey the serenity of the place, according to the theories of the artist. The structured forms attest to the influence of expressionism and cubism. The angle of view includes the lake shore, but does not rise up to the horizon line.
Most of Klimt's landscapes show the Attersee in Salzkammergut. The view of Cassone was sold for £ 27M from a lower estimate of £ 12M by Sotheby's on February 3, 2010. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
He does not work from a photo, but his removal of the perspective seems to be independent of Cézanne's deconstructions. He finds textures and geometric elements in the landscape, using a viewfinder made up of a hole in a cardboard. Later a friend will give him an ivory eyeglass.
After choosing his elements, Klimt reassembles them in square formats. His villages can be compared to the accumulations of houses in Krumau by Schiele. Both artists thus obtain a personification of the buildings in their compositions with no characters. Their final effect, however, is in opposition. Schiele wants to annihilate his haunted city but Klimt is on holidays : his colors are happy.
In 1913, Gustav Klimt spent his summer time in the vicinity of Garda Lake. He did not work much: three paintings in two months! This is a proof that he was particularly enchanted by the village of Cassone.
His oil on canvas shows many houses clustered on the slopes of the hill, along with the church and cypresses. The square format, 110 x 110 cm, is the best to convey the serenity of the place, according to the theories of the artist. The structured forms attest to the influence of expressionism and cubism. The angle of view includes the lake shore, but does not rise up to the horizon line.
Most of Klimt's landscapes show the Attersee in Salzkammergut. The view of Cassone was sold for £ 27M from a lower estimate of £ 12M by Sotheby's on February 3, 2010. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1915 Attersee
2011 SOLD for $ 40.4M by Sotheby's
Whether viewed from near or far, alone or in a forest, the tree offers to the artists the texture of its foliage.
It was a powerful source of inspiration for Klimt, who expressed it as a continuation of colored spots. This effect, precursor of abstraction, is of the same kind as the sumptuous backgrounds of his portraits of women. At the same time, another poet of color, Monet, studies the water lilies.
Yet Klimt does not push it up to abstraction. The view of the Attersee, 110 x 110 cm, for sale by Sotheby's on November 2, 2011, is a real landscape in a bold composition.
In a narrow stripe at the bottom, the village by the lake and its reflection in the water are schematic and almost naive, like the details of the Krumau views of his former student Schiele at the same time. At the top, a small piece of the sky stresses the grandiose scale of the landscape. And the rest of the image only shows the side of the mountain covered by the forest.
This painting was made in the workshop in 1915, in Vienna. It is leaving the museum of Salzburg following a property dispute related to a Nazi plunder. It was sold for $ 40.4M from a lower estimate of $ 25M. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
It was a powerful source of inspiration for Klimt, who expressed it as a continuation of colored spots. This effect, precursor of abstraction, is of the same kind as the sumptuous backgrounds of his portraits of women. At the same time, another poet of color, Monet, studies the water lilies.
Yet Klimt does not push it up to abstraction. The view of the Attersee, 110 x 110 cm, for sale by Sotheby's on November 2, 2011, is a real landscape in a bold composition.
In a narrow stripe at the bottom, the village by the lake and its reflection in the water are schematic and almost naive, like the details of the Krumau views of his former student Schiele at the same time. At the top, a small piece of the sky stresses the grandiose scale of the landscape. And the rest of the image only shows the side of the mountain covered by the forest.
This painting was made in the workshop in 1915, in Vienna. It is leaving the museum of Salzburg following a property dispute related to a Nazi plunder. It was sold for $ 40.4M from a lower estimate of $ 25M. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1917 Fräulein Lieser
2024 SOLD for € 35M by Im Kimsky
Miss Lieser modeled nine times in Klimt's workshop in April and May 1917 from the commission of her Jewish Viennese upper middle class family that included the art patron Henriette Lieser. She is not firmly identified, with three possibilities aged 19, 18 and 16. Klimt made 25 preparatory studies.
In his own usual practice, he was painting many works in parallel with a very high attention to detail. Found in Klimt's studio at his untimely death in 1918, that unsigned portrait was not considered as finished by the artist.
It had not been in view since 1926 when it was probably owned by Henriette who died in deportation in Auschwitz. Its whereabouts are unknown until it was inscribed in the Art Loss Register in 2023 for a legal appreciation. There is no evidence to support that this particular work had been confiscated by the Nazis.
The young brunette is standing in front of a shimmering crimson and orange mixed background. She is wearing a full length shawl in the signature avant-garde brightly colored floral style of Klimt and his lifetime companion the dress designer Emilie Flöge. The face is balanced and pretty and the gaze is straight and confident.
In very good condition, the portrait of Fräulein Lieser, oil on canvas 140 x 80 cm, was sold for € 35M by Im Kinsky on April 24, 2024, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
In his own usual practice, he was painting many works in parallel with a very high attention to detail. Found in Klimt's studio at his untimely death in 1918, that unsigned portrait was not considered as finished by the artist.
It had not been in view since 1926 when it was probably owned by Henriette who died in deportation in Auschwitz. Its whereabouts are unknown until it was inscribed in the Art Loss Register in 2023 for a legal appreciation. There is no evidence to support that this particular work had been confiscated by the Nazis.
The young brunette is standing in front of a shimmering crimson and orange mixed background. She is wearing a full length shawl in the signature avant-garde brightly colored floral style of Klimt and his lifetime companion the dress designer Emilie Flöge. The face is balanced and pretty and the gaze is straight and confident.
In very good condition, the portrait of Fräulein Lieser, oil on canvas 140 x 80 cm, was sold for € 35M by Im Kinsky on April 24, 2024, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1918 Dame mit Fächer
2023 SOLD for £ 85M by Sotheby's
The lifelong artistic quest of Gustav Klimt was the representation of the ideal woman, in conjunction with his project to revolutionize clothing and fabrics in partnership with his life companion the fashion designer Emilie Flöge.
The artist suddenly died on February 6, 1918 of a stroke and pneumonia brought by the Spanish flu, aged 55. Entering his studio, his friends found a masterpiece, just finished and still on the easel, his ultimate iteration of his preferred theme.
The lady with the fan is a beautiful woman in three quarter length with a sharply painted head in a richly decorated surrounding. Such a style follows early masterpieces such as Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss of 1907-1908, excepted that the application of the golden leaf is now superseded by motifs of the brightest colors : turquoise, yellow, pink, purple, orange.
The composition is now resolutely Orientalist, inspired by the Japanese prints and Asian robes which Klimt and Flöge eagerly collected. The new Austrian geisha wears a kimono that widely unveils the bare shoulder. The fan covers the breast. The yellow background is covered by a pattern of lotus blossoms of various shapes and colors plus a pheasant, a crane and a Chinese phoenix in flight, emblems of good fortune.
The woman is straight and confident, with a distant gaze ignoring the background and a small smile. She is charming with her curling hair around the ear. She is not identified : certainly not coming from the bourgeoisie of Vienna with her risqué kimono, this beauty was probably a professional model or a fashion mannequin.
This Dame mit Fächer, oil on canvas in the squared format 100 x 100 cm favored by the artist, was sold by Sotheby's for $ 11.6M (before fees ?) on May 11, 1994, lot 44, and for £ 85M on June 27, 2023, lot 125. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Klimt left unfinished at his death the full length posthumous portrait of Ria Munk. The oil and charcoal on canvas, 181 x 90 cm, was sold for £ 18.8M by Christie's on June 23, 2010, lot 34. By its composition, it resembles the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907). Ria is life size. The face is sharp, and the gown and the background blend into a luxurious color scheme inspired by both Orientalism and Jugendstil.
The artist suddenly died on February 6, 1918 of a stroke and pneumonia brought by the Spanish flu, aged 55. Entering his studio, his friends found a masterpiece, just finished and still on the easel, his ultimate iteration of his preferred theme.
The lady with the fan is a beautiful woman in three quarter length with a sharply painted head in a richly decorated surrounding. Such a style follows early masterpieces such as Adele Bloch-Bauer I and The Kiss of 1907-1908, excepted that the application of the golden leaf is now superseded by motifs of the brightest colors : turquoise, yellow, pink, purple, orange.
The composition is now resolutely Orientalist, inspired by the Japanese prints and Asian robes which Klimt and Flöge eagerly collected. The new Austrian geisha wears a kimono that widely unveils the bare shoulder. The fan covers the breast. The yellow background is covered by a pattern of lotus blossoms of various shapes and colors plus a pheasant, a crane and a Chinese phoenix in flight, emblems of good fortune.
The woman is straight and confident, with a distant gaze ignoring the background and a small smile. She is charming with her curling hair around the ear. She is not identified : certainly not coming from the bourgeoisie of Vienna with her risqué kimono, this beauty was probably a professional model or a fashion mannequin.
This Dame mit Fächer, oil on canvas in the squared format 100 x 100 cm favored by the artist, was sold by Sotheby's for $ 11.6M (before fees ?) on May 11, 1994, lot 44, and for £ 85M on June 27, 2023, lot 125. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Klimt left unfinished at his death the full length posthumous portrait of Ria Munk. The oil and charcoal on canvas, 181 x 90 cm, was sold for £ 18.8M by Christie's on June 23, 2010, lot 34. By its composition, it resembles the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907). Ria is life size. The face is sharp, and the gown and the background blend into a luxurious color scheme inspired by both Orientalism and Jugendstil.