An important portrait by Gustav Klimt is to be sold at Sotheby’s after a Nazi-era spoliation claim. The Portrait of Gertrud Loew (1902) will be put up for auction in London on 24 June, with an estimate of £12m-£18m. This follows an agreement between the Klimt Foundation (the owner) and the heirs of the sitter (the claimants).
The commissioned portrait depicts 19-year-old Gertrud Loew, who lived in Vienna (she became known as Gertha Felsöványi after her second marriage). Her father Anton Loew ran a sanatorium, where Klimt would later be treated. The painting remained with Gertha until 1939, when she fled the Nazis and emigrated to America. Gertha left the portrait in the care of a friend, who may have passed it to a Gestapo contact. The Felsöványi home was taken over as a Nazi headquarters. Gertha’s son died in America in 2013, aged 98.
In around 1941 the portrait was somehow acquired by Klimt’s illegitimate son, Gustav Ucicky, a Viennese Nazi-era film director. His wife Ursula later inherited the painting and in 2013 passed it to the Klimt Foundation, which she established. The portrait has only rarely been on display, but was shown in Vienna’s Museum für Angewandte Kunst (Applied Art) in Ways to Modernism (closed 19 April).
A restitution claim against the Klimt Foundation was initiated by Gerta’s granddaughter on behalf of the Felsöványi heirs. Last year an agreement was reached, under which the portrait would be sold, with the proceeds being split in an undisclosed proportion between the two parties. As part of the arrangement, five Klimt drawings are being transferred from the Klimt Foundation to the Felsövány heirs.