ONE.- A paint of imprecise provenance by the most famous of Austrian painters, Gustav Klimt, it was recently discovered in a private collection in the Alpine country and will be auctioned on April 24.
He Portrait of Miss Lieser (1917), one of the late works of the artist which was commissioned by a wealthy Jewish family and whose last known owner died in deportation in 1943, was presented to the public on Thursday in One.
The painting, very well preserved, appeared for the last time during an exhibition in Vienna in 1925, as demonstrated by a black and white photograph, the only proof of its existence. It then disappeared before resurfacing when its current owners required legal examination upon inheriting it from distant relatives, who had owned it since the 1960s.
Despite the investigations, it remains a mystery what happened to the work while it was missing, expert Ernst Ploil, from the Kinsky auction house, told the press.
The property
Henriette Lieser, patron of the Viennese avant-garde, stayed in Vienna despite the Nazi dictatorship, was deported in 1942 and murdered the following year. Her heirs were contacted and some came to see the painting, which has not yet been claimed and never appeared on the restitution lists.
“We have no indication that it could have been confiscated by the Nazis,” Ploil said.
But in case of dispute, a contract was agreed between the descendants of the Lieser family and the new owners under the 1998 Washington Accords, in which 44 countries, including Austria, agree to find and return the works of art stolen by the Nazis.
The painting represents a young woman, whose colorful dress stands out against a red background.
It could be sold for between 30 and 50 million euros, according to Kinsky, who even predicts that the price could rise to 70 million, taking into account the recent records of Klimt, who died in 1918 in Vienna.
In June 2023, your Lady with fan It was sold at Sotheby’s in London for more than 74 million pounds (94 million dollars), an unprecedented sum for a work of art auctioned in Europe.
Before its sale, described as unprecedented in Austria, the work will be exhibited in Switzerland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong.
FUENTE: AFP
