On February 6, 1918, the effects of a stroke and pneumonia claimed the life of 55-year-old Gustav Klimt, the celebrated member of the Vienna Secession. After his death, there were just two paintings found in his studio, one of them being the stunning portrait Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan), still resting on his easel. Now, Klimt's final masterpiece is going under the hammer at Sotheby's Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction in London on June 27.
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While Klimt's fame and wealth had grown as a result of portrait commissions from prominent families, such as Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I ordered by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, his final portrait was a work of his own folly. While it is unclear who the model is, it may depict Johanna Staude, an Austrian woman who frequently posed for him and Egon Schiele.
Related: Were Gustav Klimt and Adele Bloch-Bauer Lovers?
The work focuses on a statuesque woman in an off-the-shoulder kimono holding a fan against a backdrop of a Chinese screen flourishing with phoenixes and lotus blossoms. Klimt was fascinated by Asian art and collected masks, woodblock prints, ceramics and more from China and Japan. While his work of the early 20th century was lavished with gold leaf, likely inspired by Byzantine art, his later work shows influence from Japanese art, with flattened perspective and patterned backgrounds. The woman seems to recall the Japanese courtesan, which was a popular motif of the woodblock prints of the Edo period.
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"The beauty and sensuality of the portrait lies in the detail: the flecks of blue and pink which enliven the sitter’s skin, the feathery lines of her eyelashes and the pursed lips that give her face character," said Thomas Boyd Bowman, Head of Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sales at Sotheby's London. "Klimt here gave himself full freedom to capture on canvas a devastatingly beautiful woman. Her provocatively bared shoulder, poise and quiet self-assurance combine to stunning effect."
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After Klimt's death, the painting passed to Viennese industrialist Erwin Böhler and then art collector Rudolf Leopold, founder of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. It was acquired by the present owner at Sotheby's in 1994 for $11.6 million. Now, the work is expected to fetch £65 million (about $80 million) at Sotheby's London on June 27, the highest estimate ever for a painting in Europe. The most expensive painting auctioned in Europe was Claude Monet's Le basin aux nymphéas, sold at Christie's in 2008 for £40.9 million ($80.4 million).
Klimt's current auction record is $104.6 million for his painting Birch Forest (1903), which sold at Christie's New York last November as part of the Paul Allen collection. A number of his other works have also sold for over $100 million privately.
