Portrait by Gustav Klimt sells for $32m at Vienna auction
Al Jazeera
Portrait of Miss Lieser, a painting of a young woman left unfinished due to Klimt’s death, was long believed to be lost.
A portrait of a young woman by Gustav Klimt that was long believed to be lost has been sold at an auction in Vienna for 30 million euros ($32m).
The Austrian modernist artist started work on the “Portrait of Miss Lieser” in 1917, the year before he died, and it is one of his last works. Bidding started at 28 million euros ($29m), and the sale price on Wednesday was at the lower end of an expected range of 30-50 million euros ($32m to $53m). The buyer was not identified.
Im Kinsky, the auction house handling the sale, 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 intensely coloured painting was auctioned on behalf of the current owners, Austrian private citizens whose names were not released, and the legal heirs of Adolf and Henriette Lieser, one of whom is believed to have commissioned the painting.
It is not entirely clear which member of the Lieser family was the model.
