Portrait of Miss Lieser

This remarkable painting is one of the last paintings done by the Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt.  It was lost for almost a century, when it was miraculously rediscovered in 2023 in Vienna.  

Until now, the only known photograph of the painting was in the archives of the Austrian National Library.  The picture was likely taken in 1925 in connection with the Klimt exhibition by Otto Kallir-Nirenstein in the Neue Galerie, Vienna.  Since then, its location had been a mystery.  

It is still unsure who commissioned the painting and who the subject is exactly, but the portrait is thought to be one of Klimt's last paintings and was done shortly before he died of a stroke on Feb. 6, 1918.  The painting was left, with several small portions of it unfinished, in his studio and it is thought that the painting was given to the family who had commissioned it after his death.  The painting, however, soon vanished and the exact fate of the painting after 1925 is unclear.

"What is known is that it was acquired by a legal predecessor of the consignor in the 1960s and went to the current owner through three successive inheritances," im Kinsky auction house said.

Although very little is know about the provenance of the painting, it reached a price of $32 million at auction in 2024.

Our 40 x 50cm version of this intriguing and mysterious canvas fairly challenging and has 32colours.  Each box contains a stretched, printed and numbered canvas, paint, brushes and a page detailing the numbers for an extra reference.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/gustav-klimt-portrait-found-after-vanishing-100-years/story?id=106701412

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/klimts-portrait-miss-lieser-fetches-32-million-euros-auction-2024-04-24/