NEW YORK – Gazing impassively out of a shimmering golden background, the pale face of Adele Bloch-Bauer greeted museum-goers Thursday who had come to see the most expensive painting in the world in its new home.
After a 68-year odyssey that started when the Nazis seized the art collection of a wealthy Jewish widower in Vienna, the portrait of Bloch-Bauer went on display for the first time at the Neue Galerie, a five-year-old museum of German and Austrian art founded by cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder.
Last month, Lauder negotiated the purchase of the portrait, by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, for a reported price of $135 million, buying it from the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer’s husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. The heirs had fought for seven years to win the return of the painting from the Austrian government.
“I am so very happy that these paintings are here,” said Maria Altmann, 90, the Bloch-Bauers’ niece, referring to the portrait and four other Klimt paintings that were returned to the family. “Everybody from around the world can come here and see them.”
One of Klimt’s best-known paintings, the 1907 portrait is “our “Mona Lisa,”‘ Lauder said Wednesday during a media preview. “This is one of the icons of its time. There’s no other painting like it.”
Lauder and museum director Renee Price hope that the “Golden Adele,” as the work is known informally, will make their small museum “worth a detour,” as Michelin travel guides would put it. To judge from the number of visitors who said they stopped by Thursday just to see the painting, their hope may be borne out.
Klimt painted at a time of great intellectual and artistic ferment in Vienna, an era that produced Sigmund Freud’s theories concerning the human psyche, important works of architecture and design, and the musical explorations of Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schoenberg.
Inspired by the gold-laden Byzantine mosaics Klimt saw during a visit to Ravenna, Italy, the artist incorporated the precious metal into many of his works.
“I’ve never been that big a fan of Klimt,” said New Yorker Ellen Lannon, who saw the Ravenna mosaics on a trip to Italy. “But they’re beautiful paintings. Knowing that he was inspired by Ravenna changes my opinion of his work.”
Klimt labored on the portrait of Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a wealthy sugar manufacturer, for three years – and may have had an affair with her.
In addition to the famous portrait, the Bloch-Bauers owned a second portrait that Klimt painted of Adele in 1912 and three landscapes.
After her death in 1925, the five Klimts continued to hang in her bedroom, which her husband preserved as a memorial to his wife, said the frail Altmann, who escaped from Austria and eventually settled in Los Angeles.
Bloch-Bauer fled to Switzerland in 1938, following the Nazi takeover of Austria. The paintings, as well as his house and business, were confiscated. He died penniless in 1945.
For decades following World War II, the works hung in the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna, but in 1999, Altmann and other members of the family used newly disclosed Austrian government documents to bolster their argument that the paintings belonged to them.
The case wound its way through both the U.S. and Austrian legal systems, resulting in a ruling for the heirs by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004. In January, an Austrian arbitration panel declared that the paintings had been improperly obtained and ordered them turned over to the family.
In an interview Wednesday, Lauder would not confirm the reported $135 million purchase price, but said that the figure surpassed the previous high for a painting, the $104.1 million paid for Pablo Picasso’s “Boy with a Pipe” in 2004.
“These paintings and other paintings that were looted from Jewish homes were the last prisoners of World War II,” said Lauder, who has been one of the leading advocates for the return of such confiscated artworks to the families of the owners. “And it’s my belief that in coming years, many other paintings will be restituted.”
The five Klimts were first displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art before traveling to the East Coast. The group will be exhibited at the Neue Galerie (German for “New Gallery”) until Sept. 18. After that, the golden portrait will remain on view.
What will happen to the other four is less certain. Art appraisers have speculated that the group could command as much or more than the $135 million that the single work fetched.
That sky-high figure for one painting elicited a “what are you going to do?” reaction from Thursday’s crowd.
“It’s a stunning painting, but $135 million can go very far in other places,” said Johanna Doyle, 24, visiting from Dublin. “It’s a reflection of how much things cost in the art world.”
Comments are no longer available on this story