The New York Times has the news of a Klimt portrait that will be part of Sotheby’s late June sale:
The work, “Portrait of Gertrud Loew,” painted in 1902, has an estimated sale price of 12 million to 18 million pounds (about $18 million to $28 million), and is for sale as a result of a settlement between the Felsovanyi family, the heirs of the painting’s subject, and the Klimt Foundation. The painting depicts the 19-year-old daughter of a well-known Viennese physician, Dr. Anton Loew, who had treated Klimt (along with the composer Gustav Mahler and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein) in his private sanatorium. The painting remained in the family until Gertrud Loew, widowed after marrying a Hungarian industrialist, Elemer Baruch von Felsovanyi, left Vienna for the United States in 1939, fleeing Nazi persecution.
The painting passed into the hands of Gustav Ucicky, a film director and one of Klimt’s sons, who acquired a number of his father’s works. After his death in 1961, the collection was left to his wife, Ursula, who established the Klimt Foundation in 2013.
“A condition of Mrs. Ucicky’s gift to the foundation was that their provenance would be resolved,” Lucian Simmons, the worldwide head of restitution for Sotheby’s, said in a telephone interview. “There was a broad effort on her part to find a resolution.” Mr. Simmons added that an additional five drawings by Klimt that the foundation owns are being transferred back to the Felsovanyi family as part of the agreement between the two parties. The proceeds of the auction will be shared by the foundation and the family, although Mr. Simmons said he was not party to the details of the agreement.
Source: Klimt’s ‘Portrait of Gertrud Loew’ to Be Auctioned – NYTimes.com
