Gustav Klimt, one of the most famous and beloved Austrian modernists, painted a lesser-known portrait of an Osu prince. After disappearing for decades, the reattributed work is now drawing crowds at a Dutch art fair.
Klimt Portrait Reemerges at TEFAF Maastricht
A Gustav Klimt portrait reemerged this week at The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The painting, which depicts an African prince, is being offered for $16.4 million (€15 million) by Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Gallery, which is based in Vienna and New York.
A collector brought the painting to the gallery in 2021. It was presented in poor condition—but it bore a stamp that linked it to the Austrian artist’s estate. The gallery consulted with Alfred Weidinger, author of Klimt’s 2007 catalogue raisonné, to formally attribute the portrait. Weidinger had been searching for such a painting for years and identified it as a portrait of an Osu prince.
“The composition and painterly execution point to Klimt’s turn towards decorative elements, which were to characterize his later work, and are directly linked to his pioneering portraits of the following years,” said Weidinger in a statement.
Once-Missing Portrait Depicts Osu Prince
Gustav Klimt painted Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona in 1897. As his career progressed from there, his work grew increasingly ornate, stylized, and sensual. Klimt’s aesthetic innovations helped lay the foundation for the Vienna Secession movement and made him a mainstay of European modernism.
The portrait emerged when Klimt and a fellow artist friend, Franz Matsch, attended an event at the Tiergarten am Schüttel in Vienna, a zoo that also held problematic ethnographic exhibitions featuring real people. This particular event presented about 120 members of the Osu tribe, who came from a colonized region in modern-day Ghana. The people were put on display in Vienna, attracting large audiences numbering up to 10,000 a day.
At the event, Klimt and Matsch were likely commissioned to paint a portrait of the same Osu prince. Klimt’s canvas was left unsigned and remained in the studio after its completion, suggesting the commissioning client preferred Matsch’s version of the portrait.
The Portrait’s Mysterious Provenance and Restitution
The Klimt portrait seemingly remained in the artist’s studio until it was offered for sale by Vienna’s Samuel Kende auction house in 1923. It is unclear whether it changed hands there or at a later date. The owner was listed as Ernestine Klein when the Klimt portrait went on view as part of a memorial exhibition for the artist in 1928. Ernestine and her husband Felix, who were Jewish, were forced to flee to Monaco when the Nazis took control of Austria in 1937. Their Klimt portrait was then considered missing until it resurfaced in recent years. A restitution settlement has since been reached with Ernestine Klein’s heirs.
