As recently as November 2022 the 1903 painting Birkenwald ('Birch Forest') broke an auction record for Gustav Klimt when it was sold for $104.6 million (around £82.4 million) at Christie's New York as part of 'The Visionary: The Paul G. Allen Collection' sale.
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This record is now already history. Last night in London, Dame mit Fächer ('Lady with Fan'), Klimt's last portrait, was offered at Sotheby's auction 'Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction'. The estimate had been £80 million. After a ten-minute bidding battle, Lady with Fan went to a buyer in the room with a bid of £74 million. Including fees, the portrait achieved £85,305,800 ($108.5 million).
See also: Gustav Klimt's Last Portrait Could Set an Auction Record
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Lady with Fan not only set a new auction record for Gustav Klimt, but also became the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in Europe. The record had been held since 2010 by Alberto Giacometti's sculpture L'Homme qui marche I ('Walking Man'), which was auctioned at Sotheby's in London for £65 million.
See also: The 10 Most Expensive Artworks of 2022
As for the most expensive painting, the European auction record is more recent, with the sale in March 2022 of René Magritte's L'Empire des lumières (1961) ('The Empire of Light'), which fetched £59.4 million.
