Klimt’s auction record of $ 88 million for “Adele Bloch-Bauer II” in 2006 has fallen. Gustav Klimt Buchenwald’s painting earned $ 105 million in New York on Wednesday, the New York Times reported online.
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- The auction of the extensive collection of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who passed away in 2018, was an overall record: for the first time in an auction, more than a billion dollars was reached.
Record revenues were not achieved just for Klimt’s “Buchenwald” (1903) – which Allen bought at auction in 2006 for $ 40.336 million. Georges Seurat’s “Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version)” also set a new record for the artist at $ 149 million. Paul Gauguin Maternité II’s oil painting (1899) sold for $ 106 million. Paul Cézanne’s “La Montagne Sainte-Victoire” (1888-90, $ 138 million including taxes) and Vincent Van Gogh’s “Verger avec cyprès” ($ 117 million) also passed the $ 100 million mark.
Klimt’s autumn “Birch Forest” was valued at Christie’s at over $ 90 million, more than double what Allen paid in 2006. It is one of five paintings for which the Republic of Austria has had a long restitution dispute against the heirs of the Bloch-Bauer family.
The now new owner had already been informed in advance that he had been asked to sell his new property between February and May 2024 in favor of the Neue Galerie in New York: the painting had been requested on loan for the exhibition “Gustav Klimt: Landscapes “.
Klimt’s records have so far been held by “Adele Bloch-Bauer I”, the “Golden Adele”, which went to Ronald Lauder priced at $ 135 million as the world’s most expensive painting outside of an auction. at the time, and the portrait “Adele Bloch-Bauer II”, which US media star Oprah Winfrey bought at Christie’s in New York for $ 87.9 million and sold to a Chinese collector for more than $ 150 million. ten years later.
Thursday will continue the spectacular auction of the collection of the co-founder of Microsoft, for a total of more than 150 works of 500 years of art history. Allen wanted the proceeds to go to charitable projects. The previous record auction proceeds of a private art collection is $ 922 million and was reached in May for the collection of the US couple Harry and Linda Macklowe.
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