VIENNA: A painting by symbolist icon Gustav Klimt that reappeared after nearly a century will be sold at auction in Vienna on Wednesday (today) despite questions surrounding its provenance.
“Bildnis Fraeulein Lieser” (Portrait of Miss Lieser) was commissioned by a wealthy Jewish industrialist’s family and painted by Klimt in 1917 shortly before he died.
The unfinished portrait of a dark-haired woman was likely last seen at a Viennese exhibition in 1925. It reemerged this year when auction house im Kinsky announced its sale.
“No one expected that a painting of this importance, which had disappeared for 100 years, would resurface,” said im Kinsky expert Claudia Moerth-Gasse.
Portraits by the Austrian great rarely come onto the open market.
The auction house estimates its value at 30-50 million euros ($32-53 million), but Klimt works have sold for higher prices at recent auctions.
Last June, Klimt’s “Dame mit Faecher” (Lady with a Fan) was sold in London for £74 million ($94.3 million at the time), a European art auction record.
The highest price paid at auction in Austria is a work by Flemish painter Frans Francken II, which fetched seven million euros in 2010.__The Nation
