?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
GUSTAV KLIMT (1862-1918) VER SACRUM. 1898. 203/8x141/8 inches. Verlag von Gerlach von Schenk, Wien. Condition A-: trimmed? Paper. The magazine,Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring) was the official organ of the Vereinigung Bildender Kunstler Oesterreichs, the group responsible for the Vienna Secession. It represented a merger of the avant-garde architects led by Otto Wagner and Vienna's painters and sculptors, with Gustav Klimt as their leader. The magazine was launched in 1898 in conjunction with the first exhibition of the Secession artists. To promote the exhibition Klimt designed a poster featuring Athena (Goddess of the Arts) watching Theseus fighting the Minotaur. It was a symbolic image, representing the struggle between the contemporary artists and the "ancient" regime. It also, unexpectedly scandalously, depicted Theseus completely naked. The poster was censored, and Klimt redrafted the image with Theseus' sex hidden behind a tree. This extremely rare variant was used to advertise the magazine, and in fact, the image (in monochrome), with this text, was used on the cover of the May-June 1898 issue. Von zu Westen p. 111, Denscher p. 23 (var.). 3.
