Lost painting by Gustav Klimt worth more than 30 million euros found

In a striking portrait from 1917, Miss Leeser wears a bright blue robe decorated with orange, yellow and pink flowers against a fiery red background.

The mystery lasts for a century

This vivid cacophony of colors was thought to be lost for almost a century, and during that time the world knew of the existence of this painting only through a single black and white photograph.

The portrait’s whereabouts have been a mystery since 1925, when the only photograph recording its existence was taken. A century later, the painting surfaced and was auctioned at Im Kinski in Vienna with a high estimate of 30 million to 50 million euros.

“It is incredibly well preserved, in almost undamaged original condition,” the house’s head of modern art, Claudia Mort-Gasser, told a news conference.

Who is Miss Leeser?

Painted in the last years of Klimt’s life, the identity of the subject in the portrait has been a matter of debate, but she is known to have been a member of the Lizer family of wealthy, upper-class Jewish industrialists. The work appears to have been begun in May 1917 and was found still partially unfinished in Klimt’s studio when he died of a stroke in 1918. It was then passed on to the Lizer family.

A photograph of the painting from 1925, which belongs to the Austrian National Library, records that the painting was still in the possession of the Lieser family at the time. It is now known that the consignor’s family legally acquired the work in the 1960s, but there is a significant gap in the artwork’s provenance. In the decades between 1925 and 1960, the movement of the painting and the circumstances under which it changed hands are unknown.

There is no evidence that the work was stolen or illegally confiscated under Nazi rule, according to art law expert Ernst Plohl, who researched the painting’s past, and the Lieser family has not made any claims.

The work is being sold on behalf of the consignor and legal descendants of the Leeser family, in accordance with the Washington Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art, established in 1998 to support the identification and return of looted works of art.

Klimt’s works are worth millions

Klimt’s distinctive Art Nouveau style defined the Austrian avant-garde fin-de-siècleand some of his most famous works are portraits of female subjects.

Its current auction record of $109 million was achieved in June 2023 at Sotheby’s in London for the painting “Lady with a Fan” from the same year (1917-18). In 2006, his “Portrait of Adele Blo-Bauer II” (1912) sold for $88 million at auction at Christie’s in New York, according to Artnet’s price database.

Before “Portrait of Miss Leeser” hits the auction block as part of the Gustav Klimt Sale on April 24, 2024, it will travel internationally to Switzerland, Germany, the UK and Hong Kong.