A portrait of a young woman, one of the last works painted by the famous Austrian painter Gustav Klimt and thought to be lost, was sold today at an auction in Vienna to an anonymous buyer for 30 million euros.
The auction started with 28 million euros, and the final sale price was well below the expected 50 million euros.
Klimt, who belongs to the painting direction of modernism, began work on “Portrait of Miss Liser” in 1917, just a year before his death, and it is considered one of his last masterpieces. At the time of his death, the painting was still unfinished, but it was nevertheless handed over to the customers.
The painting was sold at auction on behalf of the current owners, unnamed Austrian citizens who are the legal heirs of Adolf and Henrietta Lisser, who are believed to have commissioned the painting. It is not entirely clear which member of the Liser family was the model, but today it is believed to be one of Henrietta’s daughters, who died in the Nazi ghetto for Jews in Riga at the end of 1943.
The rest of that wealthy Jewish family, which was known as a great patron of the arts in pre-war Vienna, left Austria after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, after which they lost most of their possessions and property.
It is unclear what exactly happened to the painting between the 1930s and 1960s, and the auction house said there was no evidence the painting was ever confiscated by the Nazis, but no definitive confirmation that it was not. It ended up with the current owners through legal inheritance.
Given all the uncertainty, the current owners and heirs of the Lissers have entered into an agreement to sell the painting in accordance with the Washington Principles, which were drawn up in 1998 to help resolve issues related to the return of confiscated art by the Third Reich.
Tags: Klimts masterpieces sold million euros
