Following the «Adele Bloch-Bauer» to the rightful owners can go another great Austrian master of the canvas, which is now in the Museum of the Austrian city of Linz

Lentos Museum in the Austrian city of Linz will soon lose the outstanding work of Gustav Klimt (Gustav Klimt). Before the Second World War, the picture belonged Aranke Munch (Aranka Munk), the wife of a rich industrialist of Jewish descent. Munch died tragically in a concentration camp, and the canvas Klimt located at her villa in Bad Auszee, was stolen. In the 1950's, bought the picture of the city of Linz and put it into a museum. Now the heirs Aranki Munch tried to conquer it.

This picture shows the daughter Aranki Ria Munk (Ria Munk), who committed suicide in 1911 at the age of 24 years. The reason for her suicide was the unhappy love. Inconsolable mother commissioned the famous portrait painter girl. Klimt concurred and wrote as many as three paintings depicting history. First, he created the work «Ria Munk on deathbed», but, according to researcher provenansa Sophie Lillie (Sophie Lillie), the picture is not very good Aranke: she found it too grim. The woman gave the job to his friend, the sculptor, whose heirs sold it after the war. Cloth «travel» for several collections, visiting, even in the collection of the famous singer Barbra Streisand (Barbra Streisand), not yet «settled» one of them in 1999.

Aranka Munk asked Klimt send her daughter alive. The artist created the painting, which is later converted into a portrait of the nameless dancers - probably Aranka Munk once again found the product failed. It was only the third portrait of history, written by Klimt, stayed at her home. This is an unfinished painting (under the title «Portrait series Munch III») is now on display in Lentos Museum and is considered one of the principal of his treasures. But as it turned out to be?

In 1938, Aranka Munk held its last summer in Bad Auszee. It said Sophie Lillie, in 1941 it was forced to sell part of his property to neighbors. A year later, the Gestapo seized all the rest. Nazis robbed Munch apartment in Vienna, and send it along with the younger daughter in the ghetto. In October 1941, Aranku sent to a concentration Littsmannshtadt (city Lodz in the present territory of Poland), where she died. Her daughter was sent to another «camp», Helmno, where she died in September 1942.

Since 1938, Aranka will not return to his mansion, but the manager continued to look after the house: ventilate the room, repairing broken things and clear the tracks in the garden from the snow. In one of his letters Munch asked him how to take care of the portrait series.

But in 1939, Aranka has ceased to pay the administrator. Carpenter, who worked at her home, invited the manager to take something as a payment and told him that the most valuable in the mansion of a Klimt painting. Manager went to look for work, took his entire family. It was in 1942. The picture in the end they did not have, and after some time it took staff Gestapo.

Heirs Aranki Munch, which is represented by counsel, Alfred Noll (Alfred Noll), first filed a claim for the return of the painting in 2005. But they have been unable to prove that the painting, exhibited in Lentos Museum, the same that hung in the mansion Aranki. Recently Lilly Sophie found a new witness - a grandson of the Governor, who offered to take the picture myself. In the 1942-meters at the age of nine years, he came with his grandfather to look at it. 11 September 2008 as the grandson of signed statement in which he argued that the mansion was the same work as the museum. «We stood in front of her and laughed at - could not believe that it is so valuable - he explains how he first saw the picture. - We do not have it, because it would be stealing. I and my family for many years wondered what it was ».

The new witness is fundamentally changing the situation. «We knew that Aranki Munch at the villa in Bad Auszee was a portrait of her daughter, but no one knew how he looked like and whether it was thus the product, which now hangs in Lentos Museum, - said the director of the museum Rollig Stella (Stella Rollig ). - This new application is very important, but we're going to investigate this matter. If there will be irrefutable evidence, the restitution will be made ».

The value of «Portrait series Munch III» - about $ 10 million. Besides paintings, the museum has two other Klimt works. According to Alfred Noll, the museum must return the painting to heirs as soon as possible, because next year, Linz will be European cultural capital. There will be bad if all the newspapers will write about the fact that the city does not want to return the rightful owners of the picture, stolen Nazi. Linz, and so is notorious that was Adolf Hitler's home town. It is a terrible offender planned to build a giant «Führer Museum», which would svozilis his accomplices looted masterpieces.

Aranki Munch heirs are the descendants of her sisters. They very much, and they «are scattered around the world» - someone living in Vienna, someone in the United States, Britain, Belgium. Perhaps, with the portrait of history, they will do the same as Malevich heirs transferred to them in spring «Suprematist compositions» : be sold at auction . Or maybe not at the auction ...

In 2006, Austria has been forced to give up to canvases Klimt: Five paintings were required by California resident Maria Altmann (Maria Altmann), heir of Bloch-Bauer - pre-war owners of works. Among her works had been returned «Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer» ( «Golden Adele») 1907, which she later sold the billionaire Ronald S. Lauder (Ronald S. Lauder) for a record sum of 135 million dollars. Lauder, fortunately, is not locked in some vault, and gave it to his New York museum Neue Galerie, where she could see everyone.

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Sources: bloomberg.com , artinvestment.ru

PS On this topic, you can also read:
How the Nazis looted Europe
«Pink Wall» Matisse: confiscation - restitution - inheritance - for sale
heirs of victims of Nazism against the Federal Republic of Germany
Minneapolis Institute of Arts to part with the Nazis confiscated the picture Leger
in Germany are still hundreds of stolen Nazi
exhibition of works of art stolen by Nazis
Gustav Klimt - № 2 in the list of Top-10 world artists