Klimt's Litzlbergkeller Returns to Auction After 29 Years, Estimated at Up to $80M
Gustav Klimt's landscape 'Litzlbergkeller' is heading back to the auction block after 29 years. Christie's will offer the painting in New York on November 17 with an estimate of $60 million to $80 million, up to about 5.4 times the $14.7 million it fetched in 1997. A Lakeside Inn Painted in Klimt's Late Style Painted in 1915-1916, the square canvas shows a brewery and inn on Austria's Lake Attersee, surrounded by dense forest. Klimt filled the scene with short, decorative brushstrokes. Above, the building and trees are clearly defined. Below, their reflections dissolve into small patches of color that edge toward abstraction. No people appear, so the architecture, forest and water take center stage. Klimt first visited Attersee in 1900 and spent several summers there before his death in 1918. Unlike many of his lake views, this one was commissioned by his longtime patron, the banker Otto Primavesi. It later passed through several private owners, including the de...