Now the debacle is official, which began in early 2024 with a series of failures in Vienna and London and is now the subject of a lawsuit for restitution filed in New York. The focus is on Gustav Klimt Portrait of Miss Lieser (1917), whose “discovery” in a private collection was originally celebrated magnificently by the auction house “im Kinsky”. The painting, which had been lost for almost 100 years, was expected to fetch at least 30, perhaps 50 million euros at auction.
