Klimt masterpiece Litzlberg am Attersee (Litzlberg on the Attersee) at Sotheby's in New York. (Click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: IT MADE $40.4 MILLION.
Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece Litzlberg am Attersee (Litzlberg on the Attersee) promises to be an important highlight of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern evening sale in New York next November 2. It is a dramatic view of the lush environs of Lake Attersee in western Austria. Painted with Klimt’s sumptuous palette and jewel-like surface it is estimated to make more than $25 million.
Klimt’s Kirche in Cassone (Landschaft mit Zypressen) (Church in Cassone – Landscape with Cypresses) made an auction record for a landscape by the artist when it sold for £26.9 million ($43.2 million) at Sotheby’s London in February 2010.
Both paintings were originally in the collection of Austrian iron magnate Viktor Zuckerkandl and his wife Paula. They were stolen after the annexation of Austria in 1938. Each has been restituted to Georges Jorisch, great-nephew of Viktor, after intensive research revealed that his memory of the works hanging in the family’s home in Purkersdorf was correct. Litzlberg am Attersee was returned to Mr. Jorisch late last week from the Museum der Moderne Salzburg. A portion of the proceeds from its sale will be donated to that museum for the building of a new extension.