Gustav Klimt - Mädchen im Grünen. Girl in the Foliage 1896
Mädchen im Grünen. Girl in the Foliage 1896
32x24cm oil/canvas
Sold for: USD 5.3 (GBP 4.3) million
Auction house: Sotheby’s, London
Sale date: 1 March 2017
Seller: Serge Sabarsky, New York
Buyer: Anonymous buyer
From Sotheby’s, London:
Klimt’s portraiture was for the most part the product of commissions from private individuals, and helped to establish him in Vienna as the most successful artist of his day. Whilst the sitter of this portrait has not been identified by scholars, due to the absence of any reference to the model in contemporary notes, Tobias G. Natter has written: ‘No one has yet succeeded in identifying the sitter. […] According to information kindly provided by the Vienna-based expert Marian Bisanz-Prakken, the sitter may be Maria Ucicka (1880-1928) of Prague’ (T. G. Natter in Klimt and The Women of Vienna’s Golden Age 1900-1918 (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 114).