One of the very few portraits of Klimt still in private hands, Lady with a Fan will be offered in the Modern & Contemporary Evening auction of Sotheby's in London on June 27 with an estimate of around £65 million.
The appearance at auction of this important work marks a significant moment for the market: not only is the painting the most valuable ever offered at auction in Europe, but now joins the ranks of the most valuable portraits - of any era - to ever come to auction.
Il painting is also among Klimt's finest works, created when he was still in his artistic prime, and at a time when the “formality” of his earlier commissioned work gives way to a new expressiveness – an ever-deeper and ever more joyful immersion in pattern, color and in form, which – although clearly influenced by his contemporaries Van Gogh, Matisse and Gauguin – became something completely different in his hands.
Similarly, while the slightly earlier works of the famous "golden period” by Klimt – led by the iconic portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I from 1907 – see their subject presented as an icon, amidst a tapestry of golden shapes, here the subject almost dissolves into the background, the soft drawing skin texture repeated on the pale yellow background.
The Lady with the Fan is Klimt's last work
Klimt first began work on Lady with a Fan in 1917, by which time he was among Europe's most celebrated portrait painters: the commissions came thick and fast, for which he was able to command prices far higher than any another contemporary of his. But this was a rare work, full of freedom and spontaneity, reflecting Klimt's joy in painting him and celebrating beauty in his purest form. It also reveals the innovative approach of him. Traditionally, portraits were – and still are – painted in the homonymous “portrait (or vertical) form”. Here, Klimt returns to the square format he used for his avant-garde landscapes at the turn of the century, giving this painting a uniquely “modern” edge.
Still standing on an easel in Gustav Klimt's studio at the time of the artist's unexpected and early death in February 1918, Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan).
Here too Klimt gives full expression to the fascination he felt for Chinese and Japanese art and culture. His favorite clothes are known to have been luxurious silk kimonos and Chinese robes, and his house abounded in beautiful objects from the Orient. Egon Schiele, a frequent visitor, describes it thus: "The living room, [was] furnished with a square table in the center and a large number of Japanese prints that covered the walls ... and from there into another room whose wall was entirely covered with a huge wardrobe, which contained her wonderful collection of Chinese and Japanese clothes”.
Dame mit Fächer like the phoenix
In Dame mit Fächer, Klimt draws mainly on Chinese motifs: the phoenixe (symbol of immortality and rebirth, good luck and fidelity) and lotus flowers (symbols of love, happy marriage and/or purity). Meanwhile, his flattening of the background and the juxtaposition of motifs reflects his deep interest in Japanese woodcuts.
Who bought the painting
The painting was acquired shortly after Klimt's death by the Viennese industrialist Erwin Böhler. There Böhler family, including Erwin's brother Heinrich and his cousin Hans, was a close friend and patron of both Klimt and Egon Schiele. They vacationed with Gustav Klimt on the Attersee, a lake near Salzburg that was the inspiration for many of the artist's most important landscapes and can be seen together in the photographs. In 1916 Erwin bought Litzelberg, a small island in the lake immortalized in Klimt's paintings. An important advocate of the arts, Erwin Böhler commissioned the famous architect Josef Hoffmann to decorate the rooms of his apartment in the Palais Dumba in Vienna, where the painting was displayed in the Music Room alongside Klimt Waldabhang's landscapes at Unterach am Attersee and Presshaus am Attersee, also part of his collection. The job eventually passed to Heinrich and then, upon his death in 1940, to Heinrich's wife Mabel.
In 1967 it was in the collection dthe Rudolf Leopolds, who is known to have purchased a large group of Schiele drawings from Mabel Böhler in 1952 and may also have acquired this work from her. Dame mit Facher it was last offered for sale almost thirty years ago in 1994, when it was acquired by the current owner's family. More recently it was the subject of a major exhibition at the Belvedere in Vienna where it was brought together and exhibited alongside Klimt's other great late masterpieces.
The exhibition of the painting at Sotheby's New Bond Street galleries later this month will mark a momentous occasion for Klimt lovers in London, with three major portraits by the artist on display simultaneously in the capital for the first time ever. (The other portraits, Hermine Gallia from 1904 and Adele Bloch Bauer II from 1912, are currently on display at the National Gallery in the exhibition "After Impressionism").
