Gustav Klimt painting auctioned for US$32 million was the subject of a claim of ownership just before its sale

Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Fraulein Lieser had not been seen in public for a century when it was put up for auction, where a Hongkonger bid US$32 million for it

Just before its sale a man, reportedly a potential heir to the original owner’s legal successor, came forward claiming to own the unfinished painting

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Visitors look at Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s painting Portrait of Fraulein Lieser ahead of its sale on April 24 at auction in Vienna, Austria, to a Hong Kong buyer for US$32 million. A claimant to the work came forward just before its sale, it has emerged. Photo: Reuters

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Published: 6:30pm, 26 Apr 2024Updated: 7:31am, 27 Apr 2024

Corrected [6:38pm, 26 Apr, 2024]

[6:38pm, 26 Apr, 2024]
Der Standard has not reported that the new claimant to the painting sought to block its export, as an earlier version stated.
[1:39am, 27 Apr, 2024]
An earlier version of this story stated that Adolf Lieser and Henriette were a couple; she was his sister-in-law. This has been corrected.

A last-minute claim of ownership of a painting by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was made just before it was sold to an anonymous Hong Kong collector in an auction in Vienna on April 24, it has emerged.

The unfinished work from 1917, begun just before the painter died, has prompted much speculation over its provenance since it was rediscovered 100 years after it was painted.

Titled Portrait of Fraulein Lieser, the painting sold to a Hong Kong bidder for US$32 million, an art auction record for Austria.

When Klimt died of a stroke in early 1918, the painting was given to the family who had commissioned it, according to the im Kinsky auction house.

But what happened to the painting between 1925 and the 1960s, a period that includes the Nazi dictatorship in Austria, remains a mystery. It resurfaced only when the auction house announced the sale.

It was auctioned on behalf of the current Austrian owners, who have not been identified. It was sold on behalf of these owners and the legal successors of Adolf Lieser and his sister-in-law Henriette, based on the Washington Principles – an international but non-binding treaty that helps resolve issues relating to Nazi-confiscated art.