Summary:
Key Points
- Christie's will sell Gustav Klimt's Litzlbergkeller in New York on November 17, estimated at $60 million to $80 million.
- The painting has stayed in one private collection for roughly 30 years after selling for $14.7 million in 1997.
- A sale near the high estimate would rank among the most valuable Klimt works ever auctioned.
The latest:
A rare Gustav Klimt landscape painted between 1915 and 1916 will go under the hammer in New York on November 17, carrying an estimate of $60 million to $80 million, Christie’s said. The auction house said the work, Litzlbergkeller, carries a guarantee and is coming to market after nearly three decades inside a single private collection.
Details:
- The work: Litzlbergkeller depicts a building on the shore of Lake Attersee in Austria, the region where Klimt spent repeated summers painting landscapes. According to Christie’s, the artist produced it on a commission from the banker Otto Primavesi, one of his patrons during the final years of his career.
- Ownership history: The current owner’s family bought the painting for $14.7 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 1997, according to Christie’s. That price set a record for Klimt at the time, and the work has not returned to the market since, remaining in the same private hands for close to 30 years.
- The guarantee: Christie’s said the sale is backed by a guarantee, meaning a minimum price has been secured before bidding opens. The house did not identify the guarantor or disclose the level at which the guarantee was set, a detail auction houses routinely withhold.
- The record to beat: The highest price ever paid for a Klimt at auction stands at $236.4 million, according to figures cited by Christie’s. That benchmark sits far above the current estimate, placing Litzlbergkeller in the tier below the artist’s most valuable portraits rather than at the very top.
- The landscape benchmark: Among Klimt’s landscapes specifically, Birch Forest sold for $104.5 million in 2022. That figure is the more direct comparison for bidders on November 17, since it measures demand for the same genre rather than for the gold-period portraits that drive Klimt’s headline results.
- The roadshow: The painting was shown publicly in Hong Kong between October 27 and October 29 as part of the pre-sale tour, Christie’s said. It is scheduled to go on view at Rockefeller Center in New York starting November 7, ahead of the evening sale.
- The estimate gap: The $20 million spread between the low and high estimates leaves wide room for interpretation of where the market sits. Christie’s did not break down how the valuation was reached, nor did it name the collection releasing the work after three decades.
Background:
Klimt painted repeatedly at Lake Attersee during his summers in the Salzkammergut region, producing the landscape body of work that now trades separately from his better-known portraits. Litzlbergkeller dates to 1915 and 1916, in the last years before the artist’s death.
Between the lines:
The gap between the $14.7 million paid in 1997 and the $60 million floor now attached to the same canvas measures how far Klimt’s market has moved in three decades. The guarantee signals Christie’s wanted downside protection even so, while the $104.5 million landscape record marks the realistic ceiling rather than the $236.4 million portrait benchmark.
What’s next
The November 17 evening sale in New York sets the final price and shows whether bidding reaches the $80 million high estimate, or pushes toward the $104.5 million landscape record set in 2022.
