Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) – Bauerngarten painted in 1907
Gustav Klimt’s Bauerngarten will lead Sotheby’s highest value Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale in London on March 1. One of his finest landscapes it was first exhibited at a pivotal moment for the artist in Vienna in 1908. It was acquired just two years after the Kunstschau show in Vienna by the National Gallery in Prague. Last year the painting, at auction for the first time in two decades, was a highlight at the Painting the Modern Garden exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Helena Newman, Global Co-Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department & Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, said: “Gustav Klimt is one of the most desirable artists today and his iconic masterpieces are revered and recognised the world over. The star of this season’s offering is undoubtedly Klimt’s luminous Bauerngarten, dating from the artist’s celebrated and much-loved golden period and from the same year as his famous golden Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Innovative in its composition and jewel-like in its exquisite blaze of colours, it is one of the artist’s greatest masterpieces ever to come to auction. Most of the artist’s oil paintings of this calibre are in major museums around the world with only a handful works of this importance having appeared at auction in the last decade.”
The estimate for the work is in excess of $45 million. Klimt ranks among the few artists whose works have sold for over $100 million.