Klimt's final masterpiece sells for €86 million to become Europe's most expensive artwork

Gustav Klimt's final masterpiece has broken the European auction record by selling for £74 million, or €86 million, at Sotheby's in London.

The celebrated Austrian symbolist's "Dame mit Fächer" (Lady with a Fan) was expected to go for around €76 million.

Described as a "beautiful, rich and alluring portrait of an unnamed woman", the portrait was found on his easel in his studio when he died unexpectedly in February 1918 aged 55.
Helena Newman, from Sotheby's, said it was painted during Klimt's artistic prime when he was producing some of his most famous and experimental works.

"Many of those works, certainly the portraits for which he is best known, were commissions," said Newman, who is in charge of Sotheby's Europe and global head of Impressionist and Modern Art.