Klimt portrait ‘Lady with a Fan’ up for sale with $80M estimate

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A late-life masterpiece by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt could become the most expensive painting ever sold in Europe when it is auctioned later this month. Auctioneer Sotheby’s said on Wednesday that “Dame mit Fächer” (Lady with a Fan) will go up for sale on June 27 in London. It has an estimated price of 65 million pounds, or about $80 million. Klimt was famous for his bold, daring art nouveau paintings and was a key figure in artistic modernism at the start of the 20th century. His “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II” sold at auction in 2006 for $87.9 million, and his landscape “Birch Forest” sold at Sotheby’s last year for $104.6 million.