ONE.- He Portrait de la seorita Lieser by Gustav Klimt, a lost painting that recently reappeared, sold on Wednesday in Vienna for 30 million euros (about $32 million), a record for Austria despite the gray areas surrounding its origin.
Estimated between 30 and 50 million euros, it was sold at the lower end of the range of estimates made by the house of auctions im Kinsky, far from the 90 million euros achieved in June 2023 in London for another painting by the artist.
The event is historic since a comparable work had never been offered in Klimt’s native country, according to Claudia Mrth Gasser, head of the modern art section.
“No one expected that a painting of this importance, missing for a hundred years, would resurface,” he said, while the previous Austrian record was 7 million euros for a Flemish painting sold in 2010.
History of the work
This unsigned portrait is causing a sensation, especially because it is very well preserved and never left Austria.
Since its presentation in January, people have flocked to admire it at pre-sale exhibitions in Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.
The painting, begun in 1917 and unfinished, represents a young brunette with precise features, with a large cape richly decorated with flowers on a bright red background. The painter died the following year, and a mystery, much debated in the specialized press, continues to surround the identity of the model.
Who is this young Viennese woman from the well-to-do upper bourgeoisie, who visited the workshop of the revered genius of her time nine times?
It is known that he was part of the Lieser family, a great Jewish industrial dynasty and patron of the artistic avant-garde.
Is she one of the two daughters, named Helene and Annie, of Henriette (Lilly) Lieser, a wealthy divorcee and pioneer of female emancipation? Or the daughter of her brother-in-law Adolf, Margarethe, as stated in the first complete catalog of Klimt’s works, produced in the sixties?
Reappeared in the possession of a Nazi merchant
The only known photograph of the painting, probably taken in 1925 as part of an exhibition, suggests that it belonged to Lilly Lieser that year.
According to the newspaper Der Standard, based on correspondence archived in an Austrian museum, she may have entrusted it to a member of her staff before being deported at the end of 1943. The painting then reappeared in the possession of a Nazi dealer, before being inherited by her daughter and later by distant relatives.
For the Kinsky law firm, specialized in restitution procedures, it is: “one hypothesis among others.”
After the war, the painting was never claimed, unlike other assets, by one of Lieser’s three surviving descendants.
Claudia Mrth Gasser told AFP that the owners, who wish to remain anonymous, contacted her company two years ago to request legal advice.
Im Kinsky reported that the current beneficiaries of both Lieser branches live in the United States. Some traveled to see the painting, before signing a contract with the owners, thus removing an obstacle to its sale.
Nothing has been said about the terms of this extrajudicial agreement, and experts criticize the procedure, considered too fast, despite the uncertainties surrounding the fate of a work of immense value.
The painting was not exhibited in the United States for fear that it could be confiscated by the courts in the event of litigation, as is the norm for works suspected of being the result of looting.
FUENTE: AFP
