Gustav Klimt’s Mysterious Nude Portrait Breaks Record with $108.4 Million Sale
‘Lady with a Fan’ was the artist’s last portrait. It was found sitting on the easel of his studio after he died.
‘Lady with a Fan’ was the artist’s last portrait. It was found sitting on the easel of his studio after he died.
A Gustav Klimt portrait of a mysterious nude woman clutching a hand fan and standing against a colourful wall of dragons and flowers sold Tuesday for $108.4 million at Sotheby’s London, setting a record for any artwork auctioned in Europe.
The 1917-1918 “Lady with a Fan” surpassed both of Europe’s previous titleholders, including the $104 million paid by billionaire Lily Safra in 2010 for Alberto Giacometti’s spindly bronze sculpture, “Walking Man I,” and the $80.4 million painting record previously set in 2008 by Claude Monet’s 1919 canvas, “Water Lily Pond.”
“Lady with a Fan” also topped the $104.6 million paid for the artist’s 1903 landscape, “Birch Forest,” which was bought by an anonymous buyer last year.
The identity of the woman holding the fan remains a mystery, but she likely stood out because the canvas is considered the artist’s final portrait. The work was found sitting on the easel of his studio when he died at age 55 in 1918.
Sotheby’s only expected “Lady with a Fan” to sell for around $80 million, but four bidders pushed it far higher. Adviser Patti Wong won the work following a 10-minute bidding war for one of her clients in Hong Kong, she confirmed after the sale.
The painting fell shy of breaking the artist’s overall record, which cosmetics executive Ronald Lauder set in 2006 when he paid $135 million for Klimt’s restituted “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” a shimmering portrait of a woman surrounded by golden-flecked patterns. That restituted painting, which became the subject of a 2015 film, “Woman in Gold,” is now displayed at New York’s Neue Galerie.
The Austrian symbolist was best known for his sensual portraits of lanky, glamorous women whose postures or modern attire marked a departure from the stiffer, salon-style portraits of women that preceded him. His 1907-08 masterpiece, “The Kiss,” depicts an embracing couple dressed in a riot of patterned fabric. It hangs in Vienna’s Belvedere museum.
Few of his portraits still circulate in today’s marketplace, which likely added to the appeal of “Lady with a Fan.”
The “lady” depicted in the work remains anonymous. Curators surmise she was a model he hired for the job, rather than an Austrian socialite like Bloch-Bauer, because the woman depicted agreed to pose in the nude, her figure obscured by an off-shoulder kimono and hand fan.
It’s also unclear if the swirl of lotus flowers and birds behind her represent a tapestry, wallpaper or Klimt’s own imagined pattern; the artist was known to admire Japanese motifs.
The sale may go a long way toward underscoring the resilience of the trophy art market despite the fresh shakiness of the art market overall. Klimt remains one of a handful of artists who tend to command top prices in good markets and bad, dealers said. Last month, Klimt’s watery scene, “Insel im Attersee,” sold for $53.2 million to a Japanese collector.
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The inflation rate ran at an annual pace of 2.2% in the quarter compared with a rise of 3.3% in the second quarter
SYDNEY—New Zealand’s inflation rate returned to within the central bank’s target band for the first time since early 2021 in the third quarter, opening a path to more supersized interest-rate cuts in coming months.
The inflation rate ran at an annual pace of 2.2% in the quarter, near the midpoint of the desired 1% to 3% target band, with some economists warning that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand must continue lowering the official cash rate at speed as a neutral policy rate is still well off in the distance.
The annual increase in inflation compares with a rise of 3.3% in the second quarter, StatsNZ said Wednesday. Inflation rose by 0.6% in quarterly terms.
The inflation data justifies the 75 basis points of cuts announced so far since August, with the RBNZ stepping up the pace of lowering the official cash rate last week by joining the Federal Reserve in slashing by 50 basis points.
Economists warn that there is a risk that inflation will undershoot the target band in coming quarters, especially if the RBNZ backs away from more significant cuts.
The official cash rate has so far fallen to 4.75% from 5.50%, with a neutral policy rate likely closer to 3.00%, according to economists.
New Zealand’s farm-rich economy has been in and out of recession for years as the RBNZ proved to be one of the more aggressive central banks globally when combating the inflation surge that emerged after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Economic activity remains flat and in need of resuscitation, especially with growth in China, its main trading partner, in a slowdown, economists said.
Higher rents were the biggest contributor to the annual inflation rate, up 4.5%. Almost a fifth of the annual increase in the consumer-price index was due to rent prices.
Prices for local authority rates and payments increased 12.2% in the 12 months to the third quarter, StatsNZ said. Prices for cigarettes and tobacco also rose sharply in line with an annual excise-tax increase.
Still, lower prices for gasoline and vegetables helped to offset rising prices, StatsNZ added.
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