Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s late-life masterpiece sold for $108.4 million on Tuesday, making it the most costly murals ever sold at auction in Europe.
“Dame mit Fächer” – Lady with a Fan – was sold to a buyer in a Sotheby’s room in London after a 10-minute bidding war for the hammer’s price of £74 million ($94.35 million). The upper final amount includes a fee on top of the selling price, generally known as the customer’s premium.
The sale price far exceeded the pre-sale estimate of £65 million, or $80 million.
It also broke the previous auction record in Europe of $104.3 million – £65 million on the time – including a buyer’s premium paid for Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man I sculpture at Sotheby’s in 2010. Previously, the most costly painting sold at auction in Europe was “Claude Monet’s Le basin aux nymphéas”, which fetched $80.4 million at Christie’s auction in 2008.
The painting sold on Tuesday was the last portrait Klimt made before his death in 1918. The painting depicts an unidentified woman against a dazzling Chinese-inspired backdrop of dragons and lotus flowers.
![Lady with a fan](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000013243780.jpg?w=1017)
It was last sold in 1994 for $11.6 million at an auction in Latest York.
Sotheby’s said the customer was art advisor Patti Wong, acting on behalf of a Hong Kong collector.
Famous for his daring, daring Art Nouveau paintings, Klimt was a key figure in artistic modernism within the early twentieth century. His work fetched a number of the highest prices for any artist.
Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II” sold at auction in Latest York in 2006 for $87.9 million, while his landscape “Birchwood” sold at Christie’s in Latest York last 12 months for $104.6 million.
![Klimt](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/06/NYPICHPDPICT000013287420.jpg?w=1024)
Two more portraits of him are reported to have been sold privately for over $100 million.
The world record auction for a murals is $450.3 million paid in 2017 for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi”, although some experts query whether the panting of Jesus Christ is entirely the work of a Renaissance master.