Index – Culture – The Gustav Klimt painting, which had been “disappeared” for a century, was found for a billion

A painting by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, thought to have been lost for 100 years, was auctioned in Vienna. The unfinished work, the portrait of Fraulein Lieser – Portrait of Fraulein Lieser – was worth 30 million euros (almost HUF 12 billion).

The picture was commissioned by a Jewish industrialist family in 1917, a year before Klimt’s death. However, many unanswered questions remain about the painting, and there are ongoing debates about who the woman in the portrait is and what happened to the painting during the Nazi era.

According to art historians Tobias Natter and Alfred Weidinger, the painting depicts Margarethe Constance Lieser, Adolf Lieser’s daughter. However, according to the Vienna auction house im Kinsky, which put the art object up for auction, the painting may also depict one of the two daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife, Henriette.

Henriette, known as Lilly, was a patron of modern art. He was deported by the Nazis and died in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. His daughters, Helene and Annie, survived World War II.

There are many unanswered questions

In a statement, the auction house wrote that the exact fate of the painting after 1925 is “unclear”. “All that is known is that it was acquired by the consignor’s predecessor in law in the 1960s and passed down to the current owner through three successive inheritances.”

The identity of the current Austrian owners has not been disclosed. The painting was sold on behalf of the owners and heirs of Adolf and Henriette Lieser under the Washington Principles, an international agreement designed to return art looted by the Nazis to the descendants of those from whom the pieces were taken. Speaking to the BBC, Ernst Ploil of the im Kinsky auction house said: “In accordance with the principles of Washington, we made an agreement with the whole family.” im Kinsky called the agreement a “fair and equitable solution.”

However, Erika Jakubovits, the executive director of the presidency of the Austrian Jewish Community, said that there are still “many unanswered questions”. He asked that the case be investigated by “an independent party”. “The return of artefacts is a very sensitive issue, all research must be carried out accurately and in detail, and the result must be understandable and transparent,” said the director. “It must be ensured that there is an up-to-date procedure for future private restitutions as well”.

Klimt’s works have fetched huge sums at auction in the past. His Lady with a Fan sold for £85.3 million at Sotheby’s in June 2023, the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in Europe.

(Cover photo: auctioneer Michael Kovacek sells Portrait of Miss Lieser by Gustav Klimt for 3,000,000 euros at the April 24, 2024 auction in Vienna. Photo: Alex Halda / AFP)

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