A painting by Gustav Klimt, whose fate was unknown for 100 years, was sold at auction in Vienna for 30 million euros

The unfinished “Portrait of Fraulein Lieser” by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was sold at auction in Vienna for 30 million euros. The painting was bought by a buyer from Hong Kong, said the auction house im Kinsky, which conducted the auction.

Estimate paintings ranged from 30 million to 50 million euros.

The painting was considered lost for almost 100 years. Klimt painted the portrait in the spring of 1917, a year before his death. Before im Kinsky announced in January 2024 that the painting had been found and would be sold at auction, it had been exhibited in 1925 (since then only a black and white photograph of the painting was known).

The portrait is believed to depict one of the daughters of Adolf or Justus Lizer, brothers from a wealthy family of Jewish industrialists. Art historians Tobias Nutter and Alfred Weidinger believe that this is a portrait of Margaretha Constance Lieser, daughter of Adolf Lieser. According to another version, cited by im Kinsky, this may be one of the two daughters of Justus Lizer and his wife Henrietta.

Henrietta was a patron of modern art. She died in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Both of Justus and Henrietta’s daughters, Helena and Annie, survived World War II.

The fate of the painting from 1925 to 1961 is unclear. According to the auction house, the work’s previous owners had legally owned the painting since the 1960s. Experts at the auction house did not identify any crime when checking the provenance of the work. In addition, the painting was not on any list of valuables expropriated by the Nazis. As they say at im Kinsky, since the 1960s, the canvas has changed three owners through inheritance. Who was the last owner of the painting is not disclosed.

The auction house im Kinsky transferred part of the proceeds to the heirs of the Lieser family in accordance with the Washington Principles – an international agreement on the return of valuables taken by the Nazis to the descendants of the rightful owners, notes BBC News.

The executive director of the board of the Jewish Community of Austria, Erika Jakubowitz, called for an independent investigation into the fate of the painting after the outbreak of World War II, because, she believes, there are many unanswered questions in this story.

“Restitution of works of art is a very delicate issue, all research must be accurate and detailed, and the result must be complete and transparent. We need to create a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art procedure for the restitution of private property,” Jakubowitz told BBC News.

The most expensive work by Gustav Klimt ever sold at auction is the portrait “Lady with a Fan.” Auction house Sotheby’s sold the painting for $108.7 million in June 2023 at auction in London. The painting became the most expensive work of art sold at auction in Europe.