A previously unknown Gustav Klimt masterpiece has become the centre of an international art scandal after appearing at TEFAF Maastricht with a €15 million price tag. The 1897 portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, depicting a Ghanaian royal, vanished from Hungary under suspicious circumstances, leaving cultural authorities scrambling to explain how such a significant work slipped through their fingers.
The Vienna-based Wienerroither and Kohlbacher Gallery presented the rediscovered Klimt at March’s prestigious fair, complete with freshly cleaned surface and provenance documents. But Hungarian investigators tell a different story. According to Budapest’s HVG, the painting spent nearly fifty years in Hungary before mysteriously obtaining export clearance from unlikely sources—the Ministry of Construction and Transport rather than the cultural authorities.
Key revelations: The portrait bears Klimt’s estate stamp and signature (visible only under infrared). Hungary’s export threshold for protected artworks stands at a shockingly low €2,800. Laboratory records confirm its examination in Budapest before the disappearance.
The work’s turbulent history reads like an art world thriller. Last documented in Klimt’s 1928 memorial exhibition owned by Jewish collector Ernestine Klein, it vanished when the family fled Nazi persecution. After resurfacing in 2023 through a restitution settlement with Klein’s heirs, the painting became entangled in bureaucratic chaos.
“The book did everything,” insists the Vienna gallery, citing Hungary’s adherence to the Washington Principles on Nazi-looted art. Yet Hungarian cultural officials deny ever approving its export. With Austria and Hungary trading accusations over paperwork, one uncomfortable question remains: Did someone deliberately overlook a million-euro Klimt to facilitate its departure?
Lawyers are currently examining the conflicting export documents. This case exposes gaps in European cultural protection systems.
Born in 1862 on the outskirts of Vienna, Gustav Klimt emerged from poverty to become one of art history’s most dazzling provocateurs. The son of a gold engraver, he trained at Vienna’s School of Arts and Crafts, where he mastered classical techniques before shattering conventions. His early career painting murals for theatres and museums gave little hint of the coming radical sensuality.
The 1890s marked Klimt’s transformation. Co-founding the Vienna Secession in 1897, he rebelled against Austria’s conservative art establishment, declaring, “To every age its art, to art its freedom.” His 1901 Beethoven Frieze—a swirling, gold-leafed ode to human yearning—previewed the “Golden Phase” defining his legacy. Paintings like The Kiss (1907-08) fused Byzantine splendour with Freudian psychology, their intertwined lovers shimmering like sacred icons of desire.
Klimt’s portraits of Viennese society women—jaw-dropping in their geometric opulence—masked a private life of bohemian austerity. He never married, though rumours swirled about relationships with his models and muse Emilie Flöge, his sister-in-law. The Austrian state initially deemed his 1900 Medicine mural “pornographic,” yet by 1910, his Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I crowned him Europe’s most sought-after society portraitist.
When he died unexpectedly in 1918 from a stroke, Klimt left dozens of unfinished canvases in his cluttered studio. Today, his works command astronomical sums (his Lady with a Fan sold for £85m in 2023). Yet, their true power lies in their fearless alchemy, where eros and mortality, ornament and emotion, become one shimmering vision. As critic Ludwig Hevesi observed during Klimt’s lifetime: “He didn’t paint with colours but with molten gold and gemstones.”
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