Gustav Klimt's Last Portrait Expected to Break Auction Records with $80M Estimate.

Sotheby's is set to auction Gustav Klimt's "last masterpiece," the portrait "Dame mit Fächer," which is expected to fetch around $80 million, the highest estimate ever given to a European artwork. The painting, depicting an unidentified female subject, was found at the Austrian artist's studio upon his death in 1918. Klimt's paintings have exploded in value over the last two decades, with the auction record for a Klimt currently held by "Birch Forest," which fetched $104.5 million last year. The sale comes amid fears that the auction market is cooling following an initially buoyant recovery from Covid-19.