Art News. Vasari Codex

gavel restitution schedule May 8, 2025 visibility 8 link 6 artists

32 million klimt sale falls through 2637831

The record-setting $32 million sale of Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Fräulein Lieser" (1917) has fallen through after a restitution settlement failed to resolve gaps in its provenance. The painting, discovered in early 2024 and sold at Im Kinsky auction house in Vienna to an anonymous Hong Kong buyer in April, was mired in controversy over its history during the Nazi era. The work's whereabouts between 1925 and 1961 were unknown, a period including Austria's annexation by Nazi Germany. The auction house proposed the work was commissioned by Henriette Lieser, who was deported and murdered at Auschwitz, but conflicting theories about the sitter's identity and the painting's path through a Nazi party member's family complicated restitution efforts. A new potential legal heir emerged after the sale, and the buyer ultimately pulled out.

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article news schedule May 22, 2025 visibility 10 link 2 artists

rediscovered klimt painting tefaf maastricht export debate 1234743209

A rediscovered Gustav Klimt painting of a West African prince, shown at TEFAF Maastricht in March, has sparked a dispute over its export legality. The Hungarian publication HVG reported that the work was "smuggled" into Austria, while the Austrian outlet Der Standard countered that the Viennese gallery Wienerroither and Kohlbacher obtained the necessary export permit. The gallery denies any wrongdoing, calling HVG's claims an insinuation. The painting, made in 1897 and depicting Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, was priced at €15 million and appeared at TEFAF following a restitution settlement with the heirs of Jewish collector Ernestine Klein.

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trending_up market schedule May 28, 2025 visibility 14 link 3 artists

lost gustav klimt portrait african prince tefaf maastricht 2621432

A long-lost Gustav Klimt portrait of an African prince, missing since World War II, has resurfaced and is now on view at TEFAF Maastricht with a €15 million ($16.4 million) price tag. The painting, titled *Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona* (1897), was brought to W&K – Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Gallery in 2023 in poor condition, but a stamp from Klimt's estate led to its identification by catalog raisonné author Alfred Weidinger, who had searched for it for two decades. The work depicts an Osu prince from present-day Ghana, created after Klimt attended an ethnographic exhibition at Vienna's Tiergarten am Schüttel where Osu people were put on display. The painting had been owned by Ernestine and Felix Klein, Jewish collectors who fled the Nazis, and is now being shown after a restitution settlement with Klein's heirs.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 23, 2025 visibility 7 link 10 artists

Swiss Bührle Foundation reaches settlement with heirs of Jewish collector over Manet’s ‘La Sultane’

The foundation overseeing the Bührle collection has reached a settlement with the heirs of Jewish collector Max Silberberg, allowing Édouard Manet's painting 'La Sultane' (c. 1871) to remain on display at the Kunsthaus Zurich. The painting was purchased in 1953 by Emil Bührle, a Swiss arms dealer who sold to both Allies and Nazis during WWII and benefited from slave labor. Silberberg, forced to sell his villa to the SS in 1935 and later deported to Auschwitz, had consigned the work in 1932, but his heirs argue the 1937 sale to dealer Paul Rosenberg was a consequence of Nazi persecution. The settlement terms are confidential.

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