Max Carter sees Gustav Klimt’s Litzlbergkeller at a point of uncertainty. The inn in the painting sits “at the water’s edge, between Klimt’s allover technique and abstraction, form and dissolution, prewar certainties and the unknown,” said Carter, Christie’s global chairman of 20th and 21st century art.
The lush green landscape will be offered at Christie’s New York on November 17.
Christie’s has guaranteed the sale and set an estimate of $60 million to $80 million.
An unnamed private collector bought Litzlbergkeller at Sotheby’s in 1997 for $14.7 million. The work then remained in the same private collection for nearly three decades.
That 1997 price is equivalent to $30.9 million in today’s money. A sale near the top of the estimate would amount to a potential near-tripling in value.
The auction will bring a major Klimt landscape into a market whose current Klimt record is $236.4 million. That price was achieved by Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914–16), sold at Sotheby’s, New York in November 2025.
The buyer and final price will be decided at the sale. The result will show whether collectors will pursue this landscape at the level secured by Christie’s guarantee, and whether major Klimt landscapes retain demand at the top of the market.
Comments (0)