Barbra Streisand has revealed she “regrets” selling a rare Gustav Klimt painting.
Taking to Instagram on Thursday, the Hollywood icon posted a black-and-white throwback photo showing herself posing alongside four artworks.
Among the images is Klimt’s Ria Munk on her Deathbed, an oil on canvas painting from 1912.
In the accompanying caption, Streisand shared that she purchased the artwork for $17,000 in 1969 – equivalent to around $150,000 (£115,000) in 2025.
“My longtime assistant made me a book of art that I’ve loved and sold,” she wrote. “One of them was this painting of Miss Ria Munk on her Deathbed by Gustav Klimt that I bought in 1969 for $17,000, which seemed like a lot of money at the time.”
Streisand went on to note that she held onto the Klimt painting for nearly three decades.
“I sold it in 1998 because I became interested in Frank Lloyd Wright and the Arts & Crafts movement. Oh how I regret selling her,” the 83-year-old continued. “As the title of the book says, ‘You should never sell art you love.'”
According to Artsy, Miss Ria Munk on her Deathbed was last sold in 2023 and is owned by a private collector.
Austrian artist Klimt was known for painting some of the recognisable artworks of the early 20th century, such as the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer and The Kiss.
And earlier this week, Klimt’s masterpiece, Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer (1914 -16), was purchased for $236.4 million (£180 million) at a Sotheby’s sale in New York City – becoming the most valuable work by the painter ever sold at auction.
Klimt died at the age of 55 in 1918.
