Gustav Klimt’s Waldabhang in Unterach am Attersee, which is believed to be the last surviving landscape the artist painted, realized $70.8 million (inclusive of fees) at Sotheby’s Tuesday night, just meeting expectations in excess of $70 million.
The work, which hammered at $61 million, was the third painting by Kilmt sold by Sotheby’s; all three came from the holdings of late mega-collector Leonard A. Lauder. Another landscape, 1908’s Blumenwiese, sold for $86 million, the second-highest price for a landscape by Klimt; his portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold for $236.4 million, marking the highest price for a modernist artwork, a record for the artist, and the highest lot ever sold by Sotheby’s.
Waldabhang in Unterach am Attersee also marked a deeply personal note Lauder’s collection, having been the first work by the artist that Lauder ever purchased. Its sale tonight stood as a kind of bookend to a collecting life that helped define Lauder’s reputation as one of America’s foremost connoisseurs.
Painted in 1916 during Klimt’s final summer at Lake Attersee, Waldabhang distills more than a decade of experimentation in the square landscape format. The canvas depicts a wooded slope rendered with the lyrical, rhythmic brushwork that characterizes Klimt’s late style, capturing an idyllic retreat far removed from the turmoil of wartime Europe.
The painting’s appearance at auction—the first in its history—offered bidders a rare chance to acquire a mature Attersee landscape with strong exhibition history, including its inclusion in the Neue Galerie’s 150th-anniversary celebration of the artist in 2012.
Coming amid ongoing questions about depth in the top-tier market, the price underscores continued appetite for Klimt’s late landscapes, which remain comparatively scarce and, unlike his more famed portraits, are deeply tied to the artist’s own private practice.
