How a Klimt portrait became the most expensive auction item

HostIt's funny how we talk about art. We usually think of it as something that sits quietly on a wall in a cold room, but then a single painting sells for over a hundred million dollars and suddenly it's the only thing the whole world is talking about. It's more money than most small towns see in a lifetime, all for one piece of cloth with some oil and paint on it. I have been trying to wrap my head around why this specific portrait by Gustav Klimt just became the most expensive work ever sold at a public sale in Europe. What makes this one face so much more valuable than all the others?

GuestIt really comes down to a few things that all happened to line up at the exact same time. The painting is called Lady with a Fan, and you have to understand that in the world of high end art, a Klimt is like a rare gem that almost never comes up for sale. Most of his best work is locked away in museums, and they're never going to let those go. So when one of this quality actually hits the market, people with deep pockets go a bit wild. But the big thing here, the thing that really drove the price through the roof, is the story behind it. This was the very last thing he was working on before he died. When the movers went into his studio after he passed away, this painting was still sitting right there on his easel. It still had the wet paint feel to it in his mind. That gives it a kind of ghost story energy that collectors love. It's not just a painting, it's a final breath.

HostThat sounds like a great bit of marketing, though. I mean, does being on an easel really add tens of millions of dollars to the price? It's still just a picture of a lady holding a fan. Why does the timing of his death change the actual value of the brush strokes?

GuestWell, it's not just the drama of the timing, though that helps. It's about what the painting shows us about where he was going. If you look at his most famous works, like the ones with all the heavy gold leaf, they feel very stiff and flat, almost like a piece of jewelry. But this one is different. He was moving into a new phase. It's full of bright pinks and yellows and greens. It has these beautiful birds and flowers that look like they came from a Chinese vase. It's much more free and loose. To a collector, they're not just buying a pretty face, they're buying the only look we'll ever get at the future of his art that never happened. It's the end of the road, and that makes it a one of a kind piece even among other rare things.

HostSo it's the "what if" factor. But even then, we're talking about eighty-five million pounds, which is over a hundred million dollars. I have a hard time believing anyone is looking at a bird on a canvas and thinking, yeah, that's worth the price of a fleet of private jets. Is this just about the art, or is it just a way for rich people to park their money somewhere it won't lose value?

GuestIt's definitely both. You have to think about how rare these items are. In the last twenty years, only a handful of top tier Klimt paintings have ever been sold. When something is that hard to find, it becomes a safe spot for money. If the world gets messy or the stock market goes down, a painting like this usually keeps its value because there's only one of it in the whole world. But I don't think we can count out the actual look of it. This painting is huge. It's a square, almost four feet by four feet, which was his favorite shape to work in. It fills a room. And the person who bought it was a well known art dealer from Hong Kong. That's a big clue. Klimt was deeply in love with art from the east, especially from China and Japan. You can see it in the patterns on the lady’s dress and the way the birds are drawn. So you have this famous person from the west who spent his final days obsessed with the art of the east, and now, a hundred years later, it's going back to that part of the world. That full circle story adds a lot of weight to the price tag.

HostThat's a nice touch, but let us be real. If I'm sitting on that kind of cash, I want something everyone knows. Is this painting actually famous, or is it only famous now because it cost so much?

GuestIt was actually quite famous among people who study art, but it had been out of the public eye for a long time. It was in a private collection for nearly thirty years. That's another big piece of the puzzle. If a painting is seen every day in a museum, people get used to it. But if it disappears into a private house for decades, it builds up a kind of mystery. When it finally comes back out into the light, it feels like a discovery. It's like finding a lost treasure. There were four different bidders fighting over this thing for ten minutes. That's a long time for a sale like this. People were shouting out higher and higher numbers because they knew if they didn't get it now, it might disappear for another thirty years.

HostIt feels like a high stakes game of musical chairs where the chair is worth a fortune. But at the end of the day, someone has to actually live with it. Does the person who bought it even get to enjoy it, or does it just go into a dark room in a bank somewhere?

GuestWe hope it stays on a wall. The beauty of a piece like this is how it changes the feel of a space. It's so bright and alive that it's hard to look away from. Even if it's a safe place to put money, it's still a piece of history you can touch. That's something a bank account can never give you.

HostIt's strange to think that a few bits of wood and some colored oil can hold the weight of a man's final moments and the wealth of a whole city.

GuestThe most striking thing is that if you look really closely at the edges of the canvas, you can see spots where the paint is a bit thin because he never got to do that final pass.

HostThe record price is what makes the news, but the real story is still sitting right there on that easel in 1918.