Gustav Klimt’s ‘Litzlbergkeller’ is on display at Christie’s in Hong Kong.
A landscape painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, “Litzlbergkeller,” created in 1915-1916, will headline Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale in New York on Nov. 17. The work is estimated to fetch between $60 million and $80 million.
Measuring approximately 110.5 by 110.5 centimeters, the oil painting has been held in the same private collection for nearly 30 years. When it last appeared at auction in May 1997, it set a world auction record for Klimt’s work.
The painting will be exhibited at Christie’s in Hong Kong from Oct. 27 to 29 before going on view at the auction house’s Rockefeller Center galleries in New York from Nov. 7.
From 1900 until his death in 1918, Klimt spent much of his summers near Lake Attersee in Austria. “Litzlbergkeller” depicts a brewery and inn on the lake’s northern shore, a place the artist had visited during his earlier summers in the region.
The composition features layers of green foliage and reflections on the water, with the building and surrounding landscape rendered in flattened forms and richly patterned colors. By leaving out figures and activity around the inn, Klimt created a quiet, contemplative scene.
The painting was commissioned by Otto Primavesi, a banker and entrepreneur who was among Klimt’s important patrons. The artist began work on it in the summer of 1915 and completed it in his Vienna studio in May 1916. In recent years, the work had been on long-term loan to Vienna’s Leopold Museum.
