FILE - Gustav Klimt's 'Dame mit Faecher' (Lady with a Fan) is displayed at Sotheby's auction rooms in London, Tuesday, June 20, 2023. A late-life masterpiece by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt has sold for 74 million pounds ($94.35 million), making it the most expensive painting ever auctioned in Europe. “Dame mit Fächer†— Lady with a Fan — sold to a buyer in the room at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. The sale price exceeded the pre-sale estimate of 65 million pounds, or $80 million. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
FILE - Gustav Klimt's 'Dame mit Faecher' (Lady with a Fan) is displayed at Sotheby's auction rooms in London, Tuesday, June 20, 2023. A late-life masterpiece by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt has sold for 74 million pounds ($94.35 million), making it the most expensive painting ever auctioned in Europe. “Dame mit Fächer†— Lady with a Fan — sold to a buyer in the room at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday, June 27, 2023. The sale price exceeded the pre-sale estimate of 65 million pounds, or $80 million. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
KWLONDON (AP) — A late-life masterpiece by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt sold Tuesday for 85.3 million pounds ($108.4 million), making it the most expensive artwork ever auctioned in Europe.
“Dame mit Fächer†— Lady with a Fan — sold to a buyer in the room at Sotheby's in London after a 10-minute bidding war for a hammer price of 74 million pounds ($94.35 million). The higher final figure includes a charge on top of the sale price known as the buyer's premium.
The sale price well exceeded the presale estimate of 65 million pounds, or $80 million.
It also beat the previous European auction record of $104.3 million — 65 million pounds at the time — including buyer's premium paid for Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture “Walking Man I†at Sotheby’s in 2010. Previously, the most expensive painting auctioned in Europe was Claude Monet’s “Le basin aux nymphéas,†which fetched $80.4 million at a Christie’s sale in 2008.
The piece sold Tuesday was the last portrait Klimt completed before his death in 1918. The painting shows an unidentified woman against a resplendent, China-influenced backdrop of dragons and lotus blossoms.
It was last sold in 1994, going for $11.6 million at an auction in New York.
Sotheby's said the buyer was art adviser Patti Wong, acting on behalf of a Hong Kong collector.
Famed for his bold, daring art nouveau paintings, Klimt was a key figure in artistic modernism at the start of the 20th century. His work has fetched some of the highest prices for any artist.
Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II†sold at a New York auction in 2006 for $87.9 million, and his landscape “Birch Forest†sold at Christie's in New York last year for $104.6 million.
Two more of his portraits are reported to have sold privately for more than $100 million.
The world auction record for an artwork is the $450.3 million paid in 2017 for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,†though some experts dispute whether the panting of Jesus Christ is wholly the work of the Renaissance master.
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