Stephanie G. Mathis Art historians believed that Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Fraulein Liser had been lost for nearly a century.
The missing artwork is now back in a private collection. When it is auctioned in the spring, experts expect it to fetch up to EUR50 million ($ 54.4 million).
Klimt started the portrait in May 1917. The subject is wearing a seafoam-green dress underneath a blue jacket with colorful flowers cascading from the front. Her cheeks and hair are curled. The Austrian auction house Im Kinsky said that while her face was painted with “precise strokes in an sensitive, naturalistic way,” other parts of the painting “reflect his free, open brushwork in his late style.”
Klimt’s last work was Portrait Of Fraulein Liesse. The nearly completed painting was in Klimt’s studio when he died in Vienna, Austria, in February 1918. Only a few small sections were still unfinished.
In 1925, a photograph in black and white was taken of the piece. It disappeared from records after that.
Victoria Bisset of the Washington Post reports that art historians did not know what happened to the painting until 2022, when its current Austrian owners contacted the auctioneer. Art lovers can now see the vibrant colors of the painting for the first time in nearly 100 years.
The auction house says that the rediscovery is one of Klimt’s most beautiful portraits from his last creative period. “Klimt is the best example of fin-de-siècle Austrian Modernism.” His work, especially his portraits – of women who were successful in the upper middle class at the turn of the century – enjoys the highest international recognition.”
The subject of Profile of Fraulein Liser is likely the daughter of a wealthy Jewish couple who were active in high Viennese Society — though which daughter it was remains a matter of debate.
Maybe she’s Margarethe Constance Lisser. Records indicate that Adolf Lieser’s industrial magnate father, Margarethe, commissioned Klimt to paint her portrait when she was 18.
She could also be Adolf’s niece, according to other evidence. The auction house’s research shows that Lilly Lieser also commissioned Klimt to paint Annie or Helene, one of Lilly’s daughters.
Regardless, it is reported that the woman who was the subject of this artwork visited the studio of the artist in Hietzing at least nine times during the spring of 1917. The artist created more than 25 preliminary studies for the young woman. After Klimt died, the Lieser family acquired the piece. It was probably part of an exhibit when the photo was taken in 25.
The auction house says that it is not clear what happened to the painting after 1925. What is known is that the painting was purchased by a legal predecessor of the consignor during the 1960s and passed to the current owner via three successive inheritances.
There is no information about the painting’s location between 1925 and 1960. One question that remains unanswered: what happened to it? Is it possible that the Nazis took the picture away from the Lieser Family?
Lianne Kolirin of CNN reports that Claudia MorthGasser is the head of modern art for im Kinsky.
She adds that “we have no proof” that the painting was not stolen between 1938 and 1945.
A private agreement was reached between the current owners of the Lieser art and their descendants due to the unknowns. The auction house claims that this decision was taken “in accordance with the Washington Principles 1998,” an international agreement that facilitates the return of Nazi-looted art.
Klimt was born in 1862 and is a prominent figure in the Vienna Secession Movement. This movement rejected the established ideas of art’s purpose. His art is in high demand today: Klimt’s Woman With a Fan sold for approximately $108 million at auction last year. It set the record as the most costly piece of work sold in Europe.
Before the auction, which will take place on April 24, the artworks will be on a tour of international stops, including Switzerland, Germany, and Britain.
