Gustav Klimt’s 1915–1916 landscape Litzlbergkeller
is headed to Christie’s New York evening sale on November 17, carrying a pre-sale estimate of $60 million to $80 million and a guarantee that ensures it will sell.
The canvas depicts an inn and brewery on the northern shore of Austria’s Lake Attersee, where the artist spent his summers between 1900 and his death in 1918. Christie’s announced Monday that the work will headline the auction house’s 20th Century Evening Sale in New York next month.
The painting has remained in the same private collection for nearly three decades, with the current owner choosing to remain anonymous. It last appeared at public sale in May 1997 at Sotheby’s New York, where the family of the present owner acquired it for $14.7 million—a sum that set an auction record for Klimt at the time and equals roughly $30.9 million when adjusted for inflation.
Exhibition Schedule and Market History Before the Sale
Before going under the hammer in New York, the landscape will travel to Asia for a public exhibition in Hong Kong from October 27 to 29. It will then return to Manhattan for display at Christie’s Rockefeller Centre galleries beginning November 7.
The work’s provenance traces back to its original commission by Austrian banker and entrepreneur Otto Primavesi, who, with his wife Eugenia, was a major patron of the arts and commissioned Klimt to paint two family portraits in 1912. Over the decades, the canvas passed through several hands, including Austrian photographer and anthropologist Hugo Bernatzik by 1927, and Vienna collector Kurt Wieser from the 1930s until at least 1958. It eventually entered the estate of Serge Sabarsky, a co-founder of New York’s Neue Galerie and a major promoter of Klimt’s work. In recent years, the painting has hung on long-term loan at the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
Max Carter and Giovanna Bertazzoni Describe the Composition
The composition focuses on the northern shore’s Litzlberg Cellar, an inn where he stayed during his earliest summers in the region between 1900 and 1907. Christie’s notes that the artist omitted all summer crowds and human figures to create a quiet, contemplative view.
The inn of Litzlbergkeller sits at the water’s edge, between Klimt’s allover technique and abstraction, form and dissolution, prewar certainties and the unknown.
Max Carter, global chairman of 20th and 21st-century art at Christie’s
Max Carter noted that the evening sale was created six years ago to span the divides that hinge on works of this caliber. Meanwhile, Giovanna Bertazzoni emphasized the painting’s decorative power and structured visual rhythm.
🎨 Gustav Klimt'in 110 yıllık manzarası açık artırmada: 80 milyon dolara kadar çıkabilir!🧑🎨 Avusturyalı ressam Gustav Klimt’in 1915-16 yıllarında yaptığı “Litzlbergkeller” adlı manzara tablosu, 17 Kasım’da Christie’s müzayedesinde satışa çıkacak. Yaklaşık 110 yıllık eser için… pic.twitter.com/AyujrtrNHb
This landscape reads like a lyrical composition in three stanze—the forest with majestic, whispering oak trees; the house embraced by their foliage; the shimmering reflection in the lake.
Giovanna Bertazzoni, chairman of Christie’s Europe
Klimt Landscapes Dominate High-End Art Market Records
The high-end art market has seen heavy concentration at the top tier, leading ARTnews to title its new Top 200 Collectors issue The Year of the Trophy.
Landscapes occupy a dominant position in Klimt’s market history, accounting for six of the artist’s top 10 public sale prices, with seven of his top 10 figures achieved in 2022 or later.
The Austrian artist’s overall public auction record stands at $236.4 million, achieved in November 2025 at Sotheby’s New York when his Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–1916) sold. Another major landscape by the artist, Birch Forest, brought in $104.5 million at Christie’s in 2022.
Christie’s announcement of the Litzlbergkeller consignment arrives just days after the auction house revealed another high-profile guarantee: a Wassily Kandinsky abstraction tagged with an $80 million high estimate designed to surpass the Russian-born artist’s current auction benchmark. Rival house Sotheby’s has lined up major competing consignments for the same November window, including $450 million in works from the Blaquier family anchored by a major Vincent van Gogh.