Now, almost 100 years later, this painting by one of the world's most famous modernist artists is up for sale, having been rediscovered in what the auction house described as an exciting discovery.
The Austrian auction house Im Kinski said in a statement: “The rediscovery of this painting, one of the most beautiful of Klimt’s last creative paintings, is very exciting.”
She added, “A painting of this rarity, artistic importance and value has not been available on the art market in Central Europe for decades.” The painting will be displayed internationally, including in Switzerland, Germany, Britain and Hong Kong, before being put up for auction on April 24.
The 31-by-55-inch painting could sell for between 30 million and 50 million euros ($32.5 million and $54.4 million) at auction.
Other works by Klimt, perhaps best known for his painting “The Kiss,” have sold for millions of dollars.
According to the auction house, the Lesser family “belonged to the wealthy circle of the upper class in Vienna where Klimt found his patrons and clients.”
It is not clear which member of the Lesser family is depicted in this piece: according to catalogs of Klimt's works, he commissioned Adolf Lesser – one of two brothers who were “among the leading industrialists of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy” – to paint a painting of his eighteen works. – Margaret's 18-year-old daughter Constance.
But some accounts suggest that Henriette Amalie Leiser-Landau, who was married to Adolf's brother Justus, until 1905, may have commissioned Klimt to paint one of her daughters, Im Kinski said.
The auction house said the person – whoever it was – visited the artist's studio nine times in April and May 1917. Small portions of the painting remained unfinished until the time of Klimt's death in early 1918, when the piece was given to the Lesser family.
Im Kinski said: “The intense colors of the painting and the shift towards loose, open brushstrokes show Klimt at the height of his late period.”
The painting was rediscovered in 2022, when the owner approached the auction house, Ernest Bloel, managing director of M. Kinski, said in an email on Friday. He added that a relative of his bought the business in the 1960s and passed it on to the family until it was in the possession of the current owner.
Blueell said the company “checked in.” [the] “The history and provenance of the painting have been traced back to every possible way in Austria” and “no evidence has been found that the painting was exported out of Austria, confiscated or looted” during the Nazi era.
Likewise, he said the auction house had no proof that the painting was not stolen, so it reached an agreement with the current owner and descendants of the Lesser family. He added that the deal is based on the Washington Principles, a set of guidelines for identifying and returning artworks confiscated by the Nazis to their rightful owners.
Another Klimt work, titled “Dame mit Fächer” (“Lady with a Fan”), sold for $108 million in London last year — the highest price for any work of art ever sold at auction in Europe, the Associated Press reported at the time. In 2006, his painting “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” — once at the center of a high-profile Nazi art theft case — sold for $135 million, a record sum at the time.
In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci's long-lost painting, “Salvator Mundi” (“Savior of the World”) sold for $450 million — in what Christie's auction house described as “the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.”
