Klimt painting sold at Austrian auction for €32 million

One of the last works by the art nouveau painter Gustav Klimt was sold at an auction in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Wednesday for €30 million ($32.1 million).

The "Portrait of Miss Lieser" is a painting of a young woman that was left unfinished when the Austrian artist died.

Long-lost painting

The work was long thought to have been lost. But it had been hanging in a private villa near Vienna for decades, according to the auction house Im Kinsky, which put it up for sale.

The auction house called it a "magnificent rediscovery." The work had been privately owned in Austria for decades, the auction house said in a statement. The current owners inherited it from distant relatives about two years ago.

Works by Gustav Klimt rarely come onto the open market. In June last year, Klimt's "Lady with a Fan" was auctioned in London for a record price of 74 million pounds (€86 million).

Gustav Klimt's 'Portrait of Miss Lieser'

The painting from Klimt's last creative period depicts a young woman in a stern frontal pose against a red background. She wears a cape richly decorated with flowers around her shoulders.

The Lieser family, who commissioned the portrait, belonged to the wealthy Viennese upper middle class. The industrialist family was later persecuted during the Nazi era because of their Jewish ancestry.

According to the auction house, after intensive research, there is no evidence that the painting was confiscated at that time. "Conversely, however, no evidence has been found that the painting was not looted between 1938 and 1945," it said in an online video for the auction.

Klimt likely began work on the painting in May 1917, according to the well-documented creative process. When the painter died of a stroke in February 1918, only small portions of the work remained unfinished.

dh/fb (AFP, dpa)