Valuable painting by Gustav Klimt (Gustav Klimt) - «Portrait Rhee Munch III», which in the past year the authorities of the Austrian city of Linz gave the rightful owners of restitution - will be exhibited 23 June at auction Christie's «The Art of Impressionism and Modernism" in London. Organizers expect to rescue him from 14 to 18 million pounds.

this picture the artist commissioned by Aranka Munk (Aranka Munk), wife of a wealthy industrialist. She asked to portray her eldest daughter tory, had committed suicide because of unrequited love in 1911 aged 24 years. Klimt created three portraits, but only this - the last, which the artist did not have time to finish before his death - like the customer, and she hung it in his villa in Bad Aussee.

In 1941, Aranka was deported to a concentration camp, where she died, but in 1942 her villa looted by the Gestapo, which are carried away with a portrait of Rhee. In 1950 it was purchased by the authorities of the Austrian city of Linz and placed in local Lentos Museum, where he stayed until recently.

In 2005, about their rights to the canvas have heirs Aranka Munk - descendants of her sisters. Though not immediately, but they still failed to prove that the portrait from the collection Lentos Museum - this is the painting, which was villa to Bad Aussee and was stolen by the Nazis . Therefore, in June last year Linz city council members voted for the transfer of "The Portrait Rhee Munch III» rightful owners .

at Christie's auction on June 23 also will be offered another valuable work - a masterpiece of" blue period "Pablo Picasso (Pablo Picasso)« Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto ", or" lover of absinthe "(1903) .

material prepared Ekaterina Guseva, AI

Sources: bloomberg.com , artinvestment.ru

PS On this topic can also be read:

Klimt: regular restitution
Austrian museum will have to pay restitution for his painting