Auctioned in London – Klimt photo with “clean bill” achieves record price

The Klimt top price of around 75 million euros expected by experts was even exceeded. By comparison, at Christie’s in New York, Klimt’s “Birkenwald” changed hands in 2022 for 104.6 million, the “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II” – until 2006 in Belvedere in Vienna, then returned – reached $ 87.9 million in 2006 dollars and was sold to a Chinese collector for $150 million in 2016.

“The story of the changing owners is just as exciting as the price trend, which is also increasingly turning these works of art into commodities and objects of speculation,” says Dr. Tobias Natter, Austria’s number one Klimt expert. “But also very doubtful. From the famous Nebehay gallery in Vienna, the ‘lady’ went to the Böhler industrial family, then to the collector and founder of the Leopold Museum, Rudolf Leopold, who sold the painting to the New York gallery director in 1981 “Serge Sabarsky. The only question is: how did this photo come from Austria at the time? Without an export license this was not possible. And this was never granted. A criminal case followed, but it was discontinued.” The work was nowhere to be seen.

An agreement was finally reached: the Belvedere was allowed to show the “Lady with a Fan”, the beautiful photo of a dancer, which – as said – “would have hung above the bed in Rudolf Leopold’s bedroom for a while. long time” as a loan in 2021/22. After this deal, there was no further criminal prosecution. Suddenly the image was no longer a “problem image”. dr Natter: “Everything cleared up! What if that wasn’t a clean declaration of health? Did Austria want to give the international art trade a disinterested helping hand?”