Mysterious Gustav Klimt Portrait Sells for $32 Million

Once presumed missing for decades, Portrait of Fräulein Lieser by Gustav Klimt sold for 32 million (€30 million) at Vienna’s Auction House im Kinsky on April 24. The Austrian artist’s vibrant late-career portrait is shrouded in mystery—including its uncertain provenance since World War II and the unknown identity of its subject.

Gustav Klimt painted Portrait of Fräulein Lieser in 1917. The portrait was left unfinished and unsigned in Klimt’s studio when he died in 1918 at age 55. Its whereabouts since its last public appearance in 1925 were “unclear,” according to the auction house, until it recently turned up in the hands of an anonymous Austrian citizen. “The rediscovery of this portrait of a woman, one of the most beautiful portraits of Klimt’s final period of creativity, is a sensation. While the picture is documented in Klimt catalogue raisonnées, it was only known to art historians as a black and white photograph,” explained Auction House im Kinksy in a statement. “A painting of such rarity, artistic significance and value has not been available on the art market in Central Europe for decades.”

Portrait of Fräulein Lieser is a stunning example of Klimt’s iconic late-career portraits of society women. The three-quarter painting depicts a young woman in a cascading cape against a stylistically flattened swath of bold red brushstrokes, upon which faint pencil lines suggest Klimt’s intention for a more elaborate background. As in many Klimt portraits, the woman’s face is rendered with realism and precision, while the rest of the painting is looser and more decorative, favoring floral elements.

Who Was Fräulein Lieser?

The reemergence of Portrait of Fräulein Lieser at auction sparked questions about the provenance of the painting. Experts also disagree on the exact identity of the model, who reportedly visited Klimt’s studio nine times in two months to sit for the portrait. Fräulein Lieser is believed to be one of the daughters of either Adolf or Justus Lieser, brothers from a wealthy Jewish family of industrialists. Auction House im Kinsky believes the painting depicts either Helene or Annie Lieser, the two daughters of Justus and his wife Henriette, a known patron of modern art. However, the first catalogue dedicated to Gustav Klimt, which dates back to the 1960s, identified Fräulein Lieser as Adolf’s daughter Margarethe.

Following a 1925 exhibition of Gustav Klimt’s paintings in Vienna, Portrait of Fräulein Lieser essentially disappeared for nearly a century. The painting was originally commissioned and owned by Adolf or Henriette Lieser, both of whom faced persecution when Austria merged with Nazi Germany in 1938. Henriette was eventually deported from Austria and killed at Auschwitz concentration camp. Auction House im Kinsey, which specializes in restitution procedures, found no evidence that the painting was stolen or unlawfully seized under Nazi rule. Portrait of Fräulein Lieser was sold on behalf of both its current owners and the legal successors of Adolf and Henriette Lieser. The sale is in accordance with the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, an international agreement to return Nazi-looted art to the rightful owners’ descendants.

Gustav Klimt’s turn-of-the-century portraits of women are dazzling relics of the Vienna Secession movement. They are also incredibly rare to see at the auction block, fetching enormous sums when they do. Last year, Klimt’s final painting Lady with a Fan (1918) became the most expensive artwork ever auctioned in Europe when it sold for $108.4 million (£74 million) at Sotheby’s in London. Portrait of Fräulein Lieser is one of the most valuable and historically significant artworks to be auctioned in Austria. Before its sale, Auction House im Kinsky, which is situated in Vienna’s Kinsky Palace, already held four of the five highest auction sales ever achieved in Austria.