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Gustav Klimt

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:13,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
Gustav Klimt

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Auction Date:2014 Mar 12 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Austrian symbolist painter (1862–1918) and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. ALS in German, one page, 5 x 6.25, no date, but postmarked October 6, 1901. Letter to Ludwig M. Konig, son of the textile wholesaler family Johann Konig & Son, Vienna, apologizing for not being able to accept Konig's kind invitation, which was apparently related to a season ticket for the opera or theater. Klimt has also addressed the self-contained panel on the reverse. In very good condition, with intersecting folds, two passing through single letters of signature, a few creases, and some scattered light soiling.

At the time this letter was sent, Klimt was working on his groundbreaking decorative cycle the Beethoven Frieze, which was intended for the Fourteenth Vienna Secessionist exhibition the following year. Painted directly on the walls of the Secession building, the piece interpreted one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, the final choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. Despite his passion for theater and opera, which inspired this famous 1902 work, Klimt here declines an invitation to a performance. This remarkable letter to Konig & Son—with whom Klimt and his partner, Emilie Floge, who owned a fashion boutique, were in close business contact—is only the second from the renowned artist we have ever offered.