A woman claiming to be the sole heir of Margarethe Lieser has filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court seeking restitution of Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Fräulein Margarethe Lieser." The painting was sold at Im Kinsky auction house in Austria in 2024 for $37.5 million, setting a record for any artwork sold at auction in Austria, but the Hong Kong collector buyer withdrew their offer after the sale. The suit, filed by Patricia J. Leahy on behalf of herself and others, names Austria's Eva Ropper and Im Kinsky as defendants, alleging the auction house failed to properly identify the subject and ignored the painting's Nazi-era provenance.
This case matters because it highlights ongoing disputes over Nazi-looted art and the application of the 1998 Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. The painting had been out of sight for a century and was assumed to have been seized by the Nazis in 1938. The lawsuit challenges the auction house's claim that all rightful heirs were identified and included in a fair settlement. The outcome could set a precedent for restitution claims involving artworks that resurface after decades, especially when sale prices are contested as "well under market" compared to other Klimt records, such as the $236.4 million sale of "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer."