GUSTAV KLIMT (1862-1918) – Litzlbergkeller
Estimated at $60-$80 million Litzlbergkeller, which offers of view of Lake Attersee in the Austrian countryside, will lead Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York on November 17. The estimate might be conservative. Klimt’s Birch Forest (1903) sold for $104.5 million at Christie’s in 2022. The auction will take place just days after the highly anticipated reopening of the Neue Galerie. In the same private collection for nearly three decades, Litzlbergkeller previously set a world record for Klimt when last at auction in May 1997 in the estate sale of Neue Galerie co-founder Serge Sabarasky.
From 1900 through the end of his life in 1918, Klimt spent most of his summers in the Austrian countryside on the shores of Lake Attersee. The present work depicts a scenic view on the lake, centered around the Litzlberg Cellar—a brewery and inn on the north shore where Klimt had formerly stayed during his first several summers in the area from 1900-1907. Painted a decade later, after the artist had relocated to accommodations in a cottage on the lake’s southern shore, the scene reflects on the past.