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.
This rediscovery matters because it adds a significant early work to Klimt's known oeuvre, bridging his transition toward the decorative style that defined his later masterpieces. The painting's complex provenance—from colonial-era ethnographic display to Nazi-era confiscation and eventual restitution—highlights ongoing conversations about colonial imagery, looted art, and the responsibilities of museums and galleries in addressing historical injustices. The work also follows another long-lost Klimt portrait that sold for $32 million at Im Kinsky in Vienna, underscoring the enduring market demand for the artist's rare works and the importance of provenance research in the art world.