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The Austrian modernist artist started work on the “Portrait of Fräulein Lieser” in 1917, the year before he died, and it is one of his last works. Bidding started at 28 million euros, and the sale price was at the lower end of an expected range of 30-50 million euros.Auctioned off at im Kinsky auction house in Vienna, an unfinished painting by the famous Austrian artist Gustav Klimt has been sold for €30m (£26m; $32m).
The Portrait of Fraulein Lieser, was commissioned by a wealthy family of Jewish industrialists in 1917, just a year before Klimt's death. Despite being lost for over a century, the painting has resurfaced, raising many unanswered questions about its history. The identity of the woman in the portrait is still debatable, and there are debates on what happened to the painting during the Nazi era.
Art historians Thomas Natter and Alfred Weidinger believe the painting is of Margarethe Constance Lieser, daughter of Adolf Lieser. However, the im Kinsky auction house suggests that the painting could also depict one of the two daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife Henriette. Henriette, known as Lilly, was an advocate of modern art, but unfortunately died in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. Her daughters, Helene and Annie, survived the Second World War.
The painting's fate after 1925 is unknown, but it is believed to have been acquired by a legal predecessor of the consignor in the 1960s. Currently, the painting is owned by an Austrian family whose identity has not been revealed. As per the Washington Principles, an international agreement that calls for the return of Nazi-looted art to the descendants of the original owners, the painting was sold on behalf of the current owners and the legal successors of Adolf and Henriette Lieser.
Despite the artwork's sale, Erika Jakubovits, the executive director of the Presidency of the Austrian Jewish Community, has raised questions about the case. Jakubovits has called for the case to be researched by an independent party, saying that "art restitution is a very sensitive issue, all research must be carried out accurately and in detail, and the result must be comprehensible and transparent." She also stressed the need for a state-of-the-art procedure for future private restitutions.
Klimt's art has always been in high demand and has fetched huge sums at auction in the past. In June 2023, his Lady with a Fan piece sold for £85.3m at Sotheby's, making it the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in Europe.The Im Kinsky auction house said that “a painting of such rarity, artistic significance, and value has not been available on the art market in Central Europe for decades.”The auction house said it was very happy with Wednesday's result.The sale price was an art auction record for Austria. The highest price previously paid at an auction in the country was just over 7 million euros for a work by Frans Francken the Younger in 2010.
