Art experts marveled two years ago when a vibrant portrait of a teenage girl by Gustav Klimt, unseen for nearly a century, resurfaced at a Vienna auction house.
Just who is depicted in the painting became an issue of debate. But there was agreement that she had been a member of a family of Austrian Jews, the Liesers, and that there were unresolved questions about what had happened to the work after the Nazi takeover of Austria.
Given the gap in the history of the work, the person who was looking to sell it at auction agreed in 2024 to a settlement in which the proceeds from any purchase would be split with heirs of the Lieser family.
But, though the work drew a bid of $37 million, with fees, the buyer is reported to have later backed out.
Now a woman who says she is a Lieser heir but was excluded from the settlement has filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court, arguing that she is a lawful owner of the work. Patricia J. Leahy, from South Carolina, is suing the auction house, im Kinsky, and the person who put the work up for sale, identified in court papers as an Austrian woman.
Lawyers for Ms. Leahy, of Charleston, say in the court papers filed on Thursday that she is the great-grandchild of Adolph Lieser, an Austrian businessman, and that the portrait depicts his daughter, Margarethe, who was Ms. Leahy’s great-aunt.
The auction house has said its own provenance research suggested the sitter was more likely one of Margarethe’s cousins, either Helene or Annie Lieser, daughters of Adolph Lieser’s brother, Justus. It did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
The identity of the sitter is just one of the mysteries surrounding the painting of a rosy-cheeked young woman in a floral cape against a flaming red background. Thought to have been painted in 1917, it is one of Klimt’s final works before he died during an influenza epidemic in 1918. The portrait is unsigned and is unfinished in spots, but it was exhibited in 1925 at a Viennese gallery.
A black-and-white photograph taken at the time was one of the only traces of the work for nearly a century until it arrived at the auction house. The court papers identify the consignor of the work for sale as Eva Ropper, an Austrian woman, who inherited the painting in 2022.
Before the sale in 2024, the auction house said that the seller had arrived at “a fair and just solution” for dividing any proceeds with the Lieser heirs in both branches of the family. But Ms. Leahy and her lawyers, Baker & Hostetler, said she had not been approached as part of that process.
A lawyer for Ms. Leahy, Oren J. Warshavsky, said in an interview that in the weeks before the sale, Ms. Leahy learned the work was being offered at auction and approached im Kinsky to be included in any settlement, but was rebuffed. He said subsequent to the sale, but before the buyer had bowed out, lawyers for the auction house did contact her to discuss a settlement offer. He declined to specify the offer but said it was “not acceptable” given his client’s status as a “presumptive heir.”
The auction house has previously said that “all legal successors” had been included in the settlement agreement with the Liesers, but it is not clear whether Ms. Leahy had made her claim to the auction house at that point.
The lawsuit says the 2024 sale price of the painting was diminished because of the dispute over its provenance and the failure to obtain consent for the sale from all Lieser heirs. Klimt portraits have been known to have been sold for more than $100 million. In 2022, one of his landscapes fetched $105 million.
According to the lawsuit, the buyer of the painting had second thoughts with “the portrait’s rightful ownership share under a cloud.”
In stating why a New York court would have jurisdiction in this matter, the lawyers for Ms. Leahy argue in court papers that the auction house had marketed the work in the state and “solicited prospective purchasers” there.
Two Klimt experts who have created separate inventories of his work, known as catalogues raisonnés, had listed the painting as a portrait of Margarethe. Her son, William de Gelsey, now deceased, was convinced it was a portrait of his mother and made it his mission to find the work, according to the Leahy lawsuit.
But the auction house embraced other evidence that suggested the image is of either Annie or Helene, the teenage daughters of Justus Lieser and his wife, Henriette, who was known as Lilly.
Researchers scouring records at the Austrian National Library, for example, found an inventory card for the negative of the old black-and-white photo of the painting that indicates that in 1925, the portrait was hanging in Lilly’s palatial home in Argentinierstrasse. (Lilly was later murdered at Auschwitz.)
The Leahy lawsuit says that identifying who is pictured in the portrait is more than just a matter of art history and family legacy.
“If the painting depicts Margarethe, then the heirs of that branch of the Lieser family have a stronger claim as rightful stakeholders,” the court papers say. “If instead it portrays either Helene or Annie, then the heirs of that branch of the Lieser family have a stronger claim as rightful stakeholders.”
Graham Bowley is an investigative reporter covering the world of culture for The Times.
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