A long-lost painting by renowned Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, believed to have been missing for a century, has recently been auctioned in Vienna, fetching an impressive €30 million. This remarkable piece, titled "Portrait of Fraulein Lieser," was an unfinished project from 1917, just a year before Klimt passed away.
The painting was originally commissioned by a prominent Jewish industrial family and is thought to portray Margarethe Constance Lieser, a daughter of Adolf Lieser. Art historians Tobias Natter and Alfred Weidinger support this identification, although the auctioning venue, im Kinsky, proposes that the subject might also be one of the daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife Henriette. Henriette Lieser, a notable supporter of modern art and a victim of the Holocaust, had two daughters, Helene and Annie, who both survived World War II.
Fräulein Lieser, painting by Gustav Klimt
The path of the painting post-1925 remains shrouded in mystery. Im Kinsky noted that it came into the possession of a precursor of the present owner in the 1960s and was passed down through three generations. The identity of the current Austrian owners remains undisclosed.
This sale was conducted on behalf of the current owners and the legal heirs of Adolf and Henriette Lieser, adhering to the Washington Principles—an international framework aimed at returning art looted during the Nazi era to the descendants of the original owners. Ernst Ploil of im Kinsky highlighted the agreement's alignment with these principles, describing it as "a fair and just solution."
Despite the successful sale, Erika Jakubovits, the executive director of the Austrian Jewish Community, has expressed concerns about unresolved questions surrounding the painting. She advocates for independent research into the case, stressing the importance of meticulous and transparent procedures in art restitution, especially for privately orchestrated returns in the future.
Selena Mattei
_-_image.jpg)
