Sold! Klimt’s ‘Portrait of Miss Lieser’ fetches $32M at auction… but who was she?
Intensely colored painting of likely teenage subject was one of artist’s last works; it fetched an Austrian art auction record price, but its ownership, too, is shrouded in mystery
VIENNA (Reuters) — Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Miss Lieser,” a painting of a young woman left unfinished when the Austrian artist died, sold at auction on Wednesday for 30 million euros ($32 million) despite open questions about its subject and previous ownership.
The painting went to a bidder from Hong Kong, who wasn’t identified.
The work was long thought to have been lost when in fact it was hanging in a private villa near Vienna for decades, according to the auction house Im Kinsky that put it on display in January before putting it under the hammer. Im Kinsky had estimated its value at 30 million to 50 million euros ($32 million to $53 million).
The intensely colored painting was auctioned on behalf of the current owners, Austrian private citizens whose names weren’t released, and the legal heirs of Adolf and Henriette Lieser, one of whom is believed to have commissioned the painting.
It shows its likely teenage subject in a turquoise dress draped in a flowing floral gown against a red background, her alabaster skin and piercing, pale brown eyes contrasting with her dark, curly hair.
Despite depicting her so clearly, it remains unclear who “Fraeulein Lieser” actually was.
The brothers Adolf and Justus Lieser were wealthy industrialists in the Austro-Hungarian empire, having built their wealth on jute and hemp, making twine and rope.
Henriette Amalie Lieser-Landau, nicknamed “Lilly,” was married to Justus until their divorce in 1905 and became a well-known patron of the arts. It is possible she commissioned the painting of one of her daughters, or Adolf Lieser could have done so with his daughter Margarethe as the subject.
“According to the latest provenance research, Klimt’s model was possibly not Margarethe Constance Lieser, Lilly Lieser’s niece, but one of her two daughters (with Justus), either Helene, the older one, born in 1898, or her sister Annie, who was three years younger,” the auction house said on its website.
Ambiguities and historical gaps
What happened to the painting after Klimt’s death in 1918, when it would have been in his studio, remains unclear, particularly what happened after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938 and the country’s Jews were persecuted, expropriated and sent to concentration camps.
Klimt left the painting, with small parts unfinished, in his studio when he died of a stroke in early 1918 and it was given to the family who had commissioned it, according to the auction house.
The Jewish family fled Austria after 1930 and lost most of their possessions.
The auction house said there is no evidence that the painting was confiscated then, but also no proof that it wasn’t. It ended up with the current owners through three successive inheritances.
Margarethe left Austria for Hungary and then Britain, but the auction house says the painting verifiably never left Austria. Lilly Lieser stayed in Vienna until she was deported in 1942 and then killed in Auschwitz the following year.
Her daughters returned to Vienna after World War II to reclaim her assets, but the painting was not mentioned in any documents, Im Kinsky said.
“It was these many ambiguities and historical gaps that prompted the current owners to contact the legal successors of the Lieser family and to agree on a ‘fair and just solution’ with them all in 2023,” Im Kinsky said, without identifying the current owners.
In view of the uncertainty, an agreement was drawn up with the current owners and the Liesers’ heirs to go forward with the sale under the Washington Principles, which were drafted in 1998 to assist in resolving issues related to returning Nazi-confiscated art.
“It has been agreed not to disclose the contents of the said agreement; however, it can be stated that all conceivable claims of all parties involved will be settled and fulfilled through the auctioning of the artwork,” Im Kinsky said.
“The agreement essentially means that — from a purely legal point of view — it is immaterial who commissioned the painting from Gustav Klimt and which of the three young ladies in question it portrays.”
An Austrian record
The Austrian modernist artist started work on the “Portrait of Fräulein Lieser” in 1917, the year before he died, and it is one of his last works.
The Im Kinsky auction house said that “a painting of such rarity, artistic significance and value has not been available on the art market in Central Europe for decades.”
The auction house said it was very happy with Wednesday’s result.
The sale price was an art auction record for Austria. The highest price previously paid at an auction in the country was just over 7 million euros ($7.5 million) for a work by Frans Francken the Younger in 2010.
AP contributed to this report
