Klimt Painting Sold At Austrian Auction For €32 Million

Klimt painting sold at Austrian auction near Vienna in a private villa for a whooping €32 Million.

Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Miss Lieser” was long thought to be lost, but it hung for decades in a private villa near Vienna.

One of Gustav Klimt’s last works was sold at an auction in Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday for €30 million ($32.1 million).

The “Portrait of Miss Lieser” is an unfinished painting of a young woman left by the Austrian artist when she died.

The work was long thought to be lost. However, it had been hanging in a private villa near Vienna for decades, according to Im Kinsky, the auction house that listed it for sale.

The auction house described it as a “magnificent rediscovery.” The auction house stated that the work had been privately owned in Austria for decades. The current owners received it from distant relatives about two years ago.

Gustav Klimt’s works are rarely available on the open market. Klimt’s “Lady with a Fan” sold for a record-breaking 74 million pounds (€86 million) at an auction in London in June of last year.

Klimt’s final work depicts a young woman in a stern frontal pose against a red background. She wraps a cape richly decorated with flowers around her shoulders.

The Lieser family, who commissioned the portrait, belonged to Vienna’s wealthy upper middle class. The industrialist family was later persecuted by the Nazis due to their Jewish ancestry.

Following extensive research, the auction house concluded that there is no evidence that the painting was confiscated at the time. “Conversely, however, no evidence has been found that the painting was not looted between 1938 and 1945,” it said in an online video for the auction.

Based on the well-documented creative process, Klimt most likely started working on the painting in May 1917. Just a few details of the painting remained unfinished when the painter passed away in February 1918 from a stroke.

Klimt Painting Sold At Austrian Auction For €32 Million – Video

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