Achi news desk-
A painting by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt that was thought to be missing for the past 100 years is to be auctioned in Vienna.
There are many unanswered questions about the unfinished painting, Portrait of Fraulein Lieser, which Klimt began in 1917 – a year before his death.
There are also arguments about who the woman in the picture is, and what happened to the painting during the Nazi era.
The painting is estimated to be worth up to €50m ($53m; £42m), although it could command a higher price.
It is believed to depict one of the daughters of either Adolf or Justus Lieser, who were brothers from a wealthy family of Jewish industrialists.
Art historians Thomas Natter and Alfred Weidinger say the painting is of Margarethe Constance Lieser, daughter of Adolf Lieser.
But the im Kinsky auction house in Vienna, which is auctioning the artwork, suggests that the painting could also depict one of the two daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife Henriette.
Henriette, who was known as Lilly, was a patron of modern art. She was deported by the Nazis and died in the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Her daughters, Helene and Annie, survived the Second World War.
The auctioneer said in a statement that the exact fate of the painting after 1925 was “unclear”.
“What is known is that it was acquired by the consignor’s legal predecessor in the 1960s and passed to the current owner through three successive inheritances.”
The identity of the current Austrian owners has not been made public.
The painting is being sold on behalf of these owners and the legal heirs of Adolf and Henriette Lieser, based on the Washington Principles – an international agreement to return Nazi looted art to the descendants of the people from whom the pieces were taken.
Ernst Ploil of im Kinsky told the BBC: “We have an agreement, according to Washington principles, with the whole family”.
im Kinsky’s catalog described this agreement as “a fair and just solution”.
However, Erika Jakubovits, executive director of the Presidency of the Austrian Jewish Community, said there were “many unanswered questions”.
She has called for the case to be investigated by an “independent party”.
“Art restoration is a very sensitive issue, all research must be carried out correctly and in detail, and the result must be understandable and transparent,” said Ms Jakubovits.
“It must be ensured that there is also a first class procedure for private restorations in the future.”
Klimt’s art has fetched huge sums at auction in the past.
His Lady with a Fan sold for £85.3m at Sotheby’s in June 2023, making it the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in Europe.
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