"Dame mit Fächer, it's for sale!" a friend called to tell me (I know -- called -- as in used a telephone).
He appeared frantic. At first I wasn't sure what he was saying. "Are you stroking?" I asked, looking around for my car keys.
"Klimt's Lady With a Fan is being auctioned off. It's estimated to be worth almost $110M!"
I'd never seen the painting until I looked online (Ah, that Klimt), only to find that everything about it involved its auction, including what it last sold for in 1994 -- almost a tenth of what it expects to get later this month.
The Globe & Mail calls it a "late-life masterpiece," completed before the artist's death in 1918. Why it chose to place the article in its "Arts" section and not its "Business" section -- as all newspapers do when it comes to art and price tags -- does no one any good.
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