Sotheby’s London will lead its forthcoming Impressionist & Modern Art Sale with ‘Bauerngarten’ an outstanding 1907 landscape painting, by the modernist Gustav Klimt, that hasn’t gone under the hammer in over two decades.
The painting has an estimate of $45m, but is expected to realise far more.
Bauerngarten – defined by the auction house as one of Klimt’s best landscapes and one of the finest works by him ever to appear at auction, was first exhibited in Vienna in 1908, and was painted by Klimt during the same period as some of his most famous portraits.
Until his death in 1918, Klimt would spend summer in the Salzkammergut region of Austria, creating more than 45 of his 50 landscapes in the tiny lakefront towns of Seewalchen, Litzlberg and Weissenbach. There, in the garden of a local farm, Klimt found the bank of flowers that inspired Bauerngarten.
Paintings by Klimt can be an exceptionally good investment. Recently Oprah Winfrey sold the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, that she purchased in 2006 for $87.9 million, to a Chinese collector for $150 million.
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
01 MARCH 2017 | 7:00 PM GMT | LONDON
