Klimt’s Litzlbergkeller returns to auction after nearly three decades
Gustav Klimt’s landscape Litzlbergkeller will go to auction at Christie’s in New York on 17 November, with an estimate of 60–80 million dollars. It has remained in the same private collection for nearly three decades. Its last auction, in 1997, set a Klimt record at 14.7 million dollars. The painting depicts an inn beside Lake Attersee and will be shown in Hong Kong before the sale.
Arts··Evening
Christie’s sets a 60–80 million dollar estimate
Gustav Klimt’s Litzlbergkeller, painted in 1915–16, will be offered at Christie’s in New York on 17 November. The landscape has an estimate of 60–80 million dollars and a sale guarantee. It is returning to auction after remaining with the same private collection for nearly three decades; the seller has not been named. It is part of the house’s evening sale of 20th- and 21st-century art.[1], [2]
The work last appeared at Sotheby’s in New York in May 1997, when the current owner’s family paid 14.7 million dollars, then a Klimt auction record. It was sold from the estate of Serge Sabarsky, a cofounder of New York’s Neue Galerie museum. At that sale the painting was listed under the fuller title Litzlbergkeller am Attersee.[1]
An inn seen from across Lake Attersee
The painting depicts a brewery and inn on the northern shore of Austria’s Lake Attersee. Klimt stayed there during his first summers in the area. He often spent summers beside the lake from 1900 until his death in 1918, but painted this view around a decade after moving to a cottage on its southern shore.[1]
For the composition, Klimt studied the opposite shore through a telescope and also drew on postcard views. The inn, its surrounding foliage and the lake’s reflections form the scene. Christie’s European chair Giovanna Bertazzoni described the composition in terms of three parts: the trees, the building enclosed by them and the reflection on the water.[1]
The provenance begins with patron Otto Primavesi
Banker and entrepreneur Otto Primavesi commissioned the painting. He and his wife Eugenia were important patrons who had already commissioned two Klimt family portraits in 1912. By 1927 the landscape belonged to Austrian photographer and anthropologist Hugo Bernatzik. Vienna collector Kurt Wieser subsequently owned it from the 1930s until at least 1958, before it passed to Sabarsky.[1]
Its exhibition history includes Vienna’s Secession and Leopold Museum, Brussels’ Royal Museums of Fine Arts and the Kunsthaus Zürich. Before the New York sale, Christie’s will show the work at its Hong Kong showroom from 27 to 29 October. The 60–80 million dollar estimate precedes the November sale, which will determine the next auction result.[1]
