World premiere

Klimt find from Austria causes a sensation

A lost portrait by Gustav Klimt is on display in Maastricht (NL).

(Bild: © Stefan Musil)

It had been considered lost since 1938. Now Gustav Klimt's portrait of a prince from Ghana is on public display again for the first time. Viennese art dealers are presenting the painting from a private Austrian collection at the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The price: 15 million euros.

It is a true art thriller: in 2021, a collector couple suddenly came to the W&K - Wienerroither & Kohlbacher gallery and presented a poorly framed and heavily soiled painting with a barely visible estate stamp by Gustav Klimt.

The Klimt expert Alfred Weidinger, author of the catalog raisonné published in 2007, quickly identified the painting as the lost painting of an African prince, an important representative of the Osu (Ga) from Ghana, which he had been looking for for two decades.

Gustav Klimt portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona from 1897.

(Bild: W&K – Wienerroither & Kohlbacher)

In 1897, Gustav Klimt and his painter companion Franz Matsch were probably also gripped by "Ashanti fever". Like up to 10,000 Viennese every day, the two made a pilgrimage to the Prater to marvel at the so-called "Aschanti" (actually people from the Osu or Ga tribe from Ghana) at one of the popular "Völkerschauen" (folk shows) of the time in the Tiergarten am Schüttel.

The two painters were particularly interested in the head of the Osu tribe, Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona. Alfred Weidinger succeeded in identifying the sitter after he was able to locate the descendants of the African visitors to Vienna in 1897. Klimt painted Prince William in profile, while Franz Matsch captured him almost frontally. The much more conventional portrait by Matsch is now in the museum in Luxembourg.

Klimt's version remained in his possession and was auctioned in Vienna in 1923 from his estate as "Portrait of a Negro, in three-quarter profile facing right, with a white coat around his shoulders".

In 1928, it is documented as a loan for the Klimt memorial exhibition at the Vienna Secession as the property of Ernestine Klein. She and her husband Felix Klein, who had the former Klimt studio in Vienna's Hietzing district converted into a villa, had to flee in 1938 due to their Jewish origins. They survived the war in Monaco. But their works of art remained missing. There was also no trace of the prince.

The art dealers Ebi Kohlbacher (left) and Lui Wienerroither (center) and Klimt expert Alfred Weidinger (right) in Maastricht in front of the recovered Klimt.

(Bild: © Stefan Musil)

Until the collector couple sought advice from W&K - Wienerroither & Kohlbacher. The portrait should have been the sensation on the W&K stand at last year's TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair). However, sudden legal uncertainties prevented the presentation. 

After intensive negotiations, a restitution settlement was finally reached with the heirs of Ernestine Klein. The Federal Monuments Office has also approved the export. This means that nothing stands in the way of Klimt's African prince's grand appearance at the world's most important art and antiques fair in Maastricht until March 20.

For Alfred Weidinger, the portrait has a special significance: "The composition and painterly execution point to Klimt's turn to decorative elements, which were to characterize his later work, and are directly linked to his groundbreaking portraits of the following years. In terms of time and style, it is close to the famous portrait of Sonja Knips from 1898."

The painting already caused quite a stir at the preview on Thursday. It will be interesting to see whether a new owner will soon be found for this magnificent piece, which is being offered for 15 million euros.