Rare Klimt painting could fetch $45 mln at auction

STORY: This painting by Gustav Klimt

is making its auction debut

Location: New York

at Sotheby’s New York spring sales

‘Insel im Attersee’ depicts an Austrian lake

and is estimated to fetch $45 million

It’s the only landscape painting

by Klimt still in private hands

(Allegra Bettini, Vice President, Sotheby’s New York)

“It's really a moment where he paints freely, and he verges so close to abstraction around 1901, 1902, that it's incredibly innovative to see what he's doing, both with perspective, color. It's almost more of a poetic depiction of water than it is a true landscape, which is what I think makes it so exciting.”

Works by Rene Magritte

Pablo Picasso

Vincent van Gogh

and Edward Hopper are also on offer

The spring auctions conclude on May 19